The Boogeyman
by Caladrius
Summary: casefic/Weechesters/season 1-2: There's a REASON to be afraid of the dark. When Sam was 9 his father put a gun into his hand and instructed him to shoot at the deadly thing stalking him from his closet. 14 years later Sam is obsessed with finishing what he couldn't at any cost, and Dean lives in fear of what will find his brother in the end. Protective Dean and Sam on a mission.
1. Prologue and Ch 1: Bring It On Home

This fic was _inspired_ by an exchange between Sam and Dean in the Pilot episode of _Supernatural_.

_Sam: When I told Dad I was scared of the thing my my closet, he gave me a .45_

_Dean: Well, what was he supposed to do?_

_Sam: I was nine-years-old. He was supposed to say, "don't be afraid of the dark."_

_Dean: Don't be afraid of the dark? What, are you kidding me? Of course you should be afraid of the dark; you know what's out there._

Folks. This is that story.

It's a story about brothers and hurt and the things that changed and something that had to be finished...

It's about some very complicated boys and their father. And, oh yes, the boogeyman.

Okay...here it goes...holy crap, I'm finally going to post the first part of this freaking novel...

*holds breath*

Expect frequent updates. This baby is nearly done.

**Much love and thanks go to Agelade who told me it was good, kept me going, gave me inspiration, and is helping me edit this huge collection of over 140 Google doc pages. THANK YOU! YOU ARE MY GODDESS! *bows and grovels***

**-Caladrius**

* * *

**Prologue**

**June 6, 1993**

_A dark man sits alone at a table with a bottle of whiskey. The table is covered with papers from old books, computer printouts, sketches, notes, maps, a journal. _

_Specific and thorough research. _

_The man stares at it all for long moments. He puts the bottle it to his lips, takes a hot swig, and feels the burn of the liquid ignite a memory._

_A shudder is wrung out of his lungs. He doesn't want to look at the table anymore. He wants to set it all on fire because he is ashamed, and this work reminds him of dark things. _

_Burn it. Destroy it. Let it die with the past..._

_The anger surges up like a volcano, and he backhands the bottle to hurtle against a wall and break. He grabs a fistful of the paper, careless of its delicacy, and crumbles what he can._

_He is consumed with self-loathing on a good day. Right now, he can barely stomach himself._

_His gaze falls on his hand. A date scrawled on piece of notebook paper in his grip manages to squeeze through a gap in his fist and hits him. _

_May 2, 2007._

_The man pushes the anger deep down inside where he keeps it locked away. His hands are casual now as he sweeps the research together, neatly, gently flattening out what he nearly destroyed. _

Sammy...

_That is not a tear on his face. A man shouldn't cry._

_He has to make a plan to save his son..._

* * *

**Chapter 1: "Bring It On Home" **

**NOW: May 1, 2007**

"There it is."

Dean stops the Impala and turns the key though he keeps the headlights running. He and Sam lean forward together to study the slightly tilting structure in the darkness before them. The silence is heavy with memories that threaten to collapse the precariously balanced roof.

This is a strange and terrible kind of homecoming for Dean because of what this room did to Sam-what it's _still_ doing to him-to them both. Despite the constant moving when they were kids, Dean has a pretty good head when it comes to places they'd lived, and this one, in particular, was engraved darkly and indelibly into his memory: They had lived here for only five days during the spring fourteen years ago when Sam was almost 10 and Dean 14. Just five days in a seemingly random Wisconsin town. It was amazing how their lives had been irreparably changed by them.

Dean turns his head to the left and squints up at the barely visible frame of a neon sign that had once said "Osseo Motel" about twenty feet away. Sam stares straight ahead at the door of one room in particular. Room 23. The door plaque had fallen off, but this was the room, and Dean had driven right to it even though it had been so long, even though it was dark. Like he could ever forget it.

"How long did you say this place has been abandoned?"

"Six years," Sam answers. His voice is neutral, carefully so. Controlled.

The sheer force of Sammy just trying to...to _deal_ with his memories strikes Dean hard. It shakes loose the memory a big brother wants so much to forget-

_Sammy is hurting. Hurting bad in his arms. He's not looking at anything, not speaking anymore, just staring like he's dead inside and he just...he thinks it's his fault. And it's not. I _swear _it's not._

"_Don't, Sammy. Don't. Blame me. Blame _me_."_

And Dad never talked about it again. Ever. He never let it go, but he never _ended_ it.

Dean frowns at the motel, feels the old anger, still clinging, rise up.

_It was always about the lesson, wasn't it, Dad? Goddammit. _

Dean clenches the steering wheel hard. No matter what happens, a guy always remembers his first hunt, whether it went well or whether it went south, and judging from the way Sam had _changed_ after that-not to mention how different he's been for the last three weeks-he remembers all the wrong parts about it. He's still only thinking of his mistakes.

_You were _nine_, Sammy!_

But Winchesters can't make mistakes. They can't misjudge, they can't hesitate, they can't let their guard down to _anyone_ and they can't make mistakes. Something huge always hangs in the balance. Always. And making one mistake only leads to making more mistakes to fix it.

Dad knew it, but it never stopped him. Dean knows it all too well too. It was like a Winchester curse, and Dean doesn't want Sam to learn it the hard way.

"Six years, huh?" Dean makes a noise in the back of his throat like this is going to be a bad idea. "Sammy, I get this. I do. But just look at those joists. This thing is not exactly stable for highly experimental summoning rituals. If it'll even come."

"It'll come," Sam answers with complete assurance.

"I know I've said it once..." Dean pauses, "okay, probably more than once, but don't you think you've passed the statute of limitations on this one? Pretty sure there's a rule about the boogeyman harassing boys over 6'1." There's a note of hope sandwiched inside the sarcasm which coats the memories of this evil place. Dean's stubborn, and this is dangerous, especially for Sam, no matter how set on the trigger he is. Things had not ended well the first time for...anyone.

And, of course, Dean has his own issues about that night, even though Sam didn't blame him. _Wouldn't_ just blame him, dammit. If he had, maybe they wouldn't have had to come back here and reopen the big leaking wound in his little brother's heart. Wouldn't have to make Dean watch it bleed.

Sam sits back in the passenger's seat slowly and Dean instinctively knows what he is thinking:

_Fourteen years. It's past due._

"It'll come, Dean. Whether the ritual works or not."

There's the creepy psychic certainty again. Those dreams Sam has been having...

This is the place where it all started for Sam-where it should have ended. After that, something had changed in his little brother. Something had broken that couldn't be put back together.

Somebody should have said something more to the kid when he was 10...

Dean stares at the steering wheel, fighting the urge to hit it. And under normal circumstances, he would have let the instinct work itself out, but he has to be at least a little careful of pushing Sam away now. He hasn't seen Sam like this, this...focussed, driven, not even after Jessica had been murdered, though it makes sense in a sick way. Still, the last thing he wants is for Sam to go in alone.

"_It's time, Sam."_

_Jesus, Dad. Those three words 14 years ago..._

Dead for ten months and he's still giving orders. Ironic that it's Sam, the kid who was always so bent out of shape by those orders, who insists on being here now and doing this crazy thing alone. Maybe it was because there was no final "I'm proud of you, son," moment with Sam, and Dean, of all people, knew just how hard Sam had tried to love that man and be loved by him.

Put your life on the line to make a dead father proud. Did they qualify for some kind of Dysfunctional Family of the Century award or what?

Who is Sam chasing here? A little girl? The ghost of his father? The ghost of his innocence? They're all long gone. Hell, even this motel from their past looks like a ghost now-faded and broken and a shade of what it was.

"Hey, have I pointed out that the building is probably going to fall on us? Do you think about stuff like that anymore, because you used to. You know, work some calculus and physics on the relative mass of a ton of two by fours and the human skull and then let's figure out some other way..." _Like, seven years from now._

Sam looks at Dean, and Dean doesn't like it because Sam is really calm. Not taking the bait. At all.

"Dean, I told you, I'm doing this. I've got this." He gives a small smile as if reassuring a frightened _child_ and now Dean is _really_ nervous. "And yeah, I did the math and it turns out that it'll hold out for one of us. Dibs."

"Dib-Dammit! You clearly cheated."

Sam smiles. "Hard to cheat when you keep changing the rules. Okay then, rock paper scissors?"

Yeah. Har har, Sammy. _You know I suck at that..._

"Let's just consider the logic then, Mr. Stanford. Wouldn't it make sense for Gigantor to stay in the car and the older, less...massful brother take over? I know how much you hate splinters."

Sam makes a tiny, mirthful laugh and Dean thinks maybe, possibly, he can ease Sam out of this one. If he's careful.

"You _know_ Sam. 'Oh my god, I have a splinter. I need a tetanus shot.'"

"Dude, that was _one time_. And I was _six_!"

"And? You were a little bitch then and you are now." He adds, "And what kind of six-year-old kid knows so much about tetanus anyway?"

There's a hesitation in the comeback. Dean braces for impact, and he is not wrong.

"Dad taught me. He taught us both. Don't you remember that survival weekend in Michigan?"

Jesus, Sammy remembers _that?_ _Maybe_ he was four.

"Dude, that was just what Dad called it. We were camping because we couldn't find a motel that night." Dean squints his eyes and shakes his head in disbelief. "What the hell, do you also remember when you were _born_?"

"No. But sometimes I remember the dreams..."

Sam's eyes trail back to the door of that Osseo Motel room and his expression is haunted.

Well, fuck. New tactic.

"We have until, like, what, 11:30? Should only take a few minutes to set up the ritual, so we've got time and I'm starving and you are hogging the grub." Dean holds out his hand for their drive-through cuisine of the night. And yes, that seems to work. Sam apologizes (a little weird, but okay), turns away from the memories no doubt on some black and white silent film in his head, and digs deep into the bag to pull out Dean's Monster Burger or whatever it was. With bacon. And hold the hippy-happy greenery, thank you.

Dean smiles as he unwraps his burger. He has to stare deep into its eyes for a few seconds, lovingly, milking the smirk he can feel from his complicated little brother.

"You sure you don't want a room so you two can be alone?" Sam nods at the silent motel before them.

Dean grins roguishly at his burger, seducing it. "Don't listen to him, baby. He's jealous. Come here, I'll make it better." He sinks his teeth into the sandwich, taking a big bite, and oh yes, let the grease come into his body and fill it with love.

"Mmmm."

Sammy smiles, ducks his head, scratches the back of his ear almost in embarrassment as Dean continues to make noises better suited to a porn than eating a burger (although the difference in the joy those two things brought was negligible).

He points his chin at Sam as he chews and talks around it. "Come on. Chow time. Get your lettuce on. I know how much you like to chew each bite 23 times and the clock is ticking, Cinderella." Dean swallows his after five. Hey, that moment was over. Time for a new moment.

"I would if your_ Eyes Wide Shut_ sound effects weren't making me lose my appetite, Dean." But he reaches in for the plastic salad container like a good little brother anyway.

Dean makes a face. "I seriously doubt your ability to even have an appetite when you have grass to look forward to." It sparks a memory. "See? You aren't at the bottom of the food chain after all." He pushes on Sam's shoulder and gets a reluctant smile for the work.

Thank God it was a smile. That was a gamble.

"You used to like burgers and mac and cheese."

Sam considers the unwrapped lettuce and then rips open a plastic fork. "Yeah. I did. I still do, sometimes."

"Oh yeah? Like when?"

Sam shrugs his shoulders once and says, "Like when you make them for me."

Dean stops chewing. Okaaay. Hard to eat when a guy's heart jumps into his stomach.

"Well, of course when _I _make them," he says, when he's recovering because the _way_ Sam said it was too...muchly. "And I made you eat it. I thought they would take-you know, all of my better habits-if I drummed them into you."

"You mean like doing whatever it takes to do the job right? Even if it sucks?"

Dean nods, "Yeah, like..." He stops. That isn't the right tone.

But Deans face feels a little chilly. Tingly. His vision is playing tricks with his food.

"You mean like finishing what you started? What you were _supposed _to start? Lessons like that?"

Hold on now. Hang on. Starting what? Finishing who? What in the hell did he order? A doublestacker? Dean blinks and it's a long blink.

Oh, fuck.

"Uh, Sammy..." His voice sounds funny even in his own head, "...either there are...two burgers here...or I was just _roofied _by my own brother..." He swings his head in a wide wobbly arc to look at Sam, but it's dark in the Impala. Super dark.

"I'm learning the lessons, Dean."

"You little...son of a bitch..." He feels his legs kinda just let go and he slumps a little. It doesn't hurt, no, but, _goddammit_ Sam.

Sam's voice is closer to him as his vision gets darker.

"Dean, you probably won't remember this, and I swear, if I come back..._when_ I come back, you can punch me. A couple times. Hell, as much as you want. I won't blame you, but you need to know this..."

_Dammit Sam. Grab him. _But Dean's arms are leaden.

"You're my brother and you sure do get your own way a lot, but I love you. And I know that you want me to blame you so you can get in on this, make it an _us _thing, but I can't. I can't blame you. It's my turn, Dean. Just this once, at least. This is mine, and I have to handle it. It's time, Dean."

Those words again.

"_It's time."_

Ah fuck, Sammy. I guess it _is _time.

_Don't die, Sammy!_

"I'm coming back, Dean. I can do it now. Wait for me."

_Darkness._

(to be continued...)


	2. Ch 2: In the Evening In the Light

So...just what the ef is going on? Oh, you'll find out...

This chapter begins a series of flashbacks. One series takes place in April/May 1993 When Sam is nearly 10-years old. The others are what I call "Present Day flashbacks" though really they start at almost the beginning of Season 1 and work their way through most of what would be Season 2. They work together. Don't worry, it's less complicated than it sounds, trust me.

Just...just do yourself a favor and check your closet before you go to bed tonight because you never know...

Again, so SO much love and thanks to Agelade, my partner in crime, for being an excellent sounding board, mentor, friend, editor, and inspiration. Without you, this thing never would have gotten started! :'D

P.S. People of Wisconsin, especially Osseo, I love you. Sorry for anything about your town I don't get right. I can't even remember why I picked your little 2 mile city for this epic adventure, but I did, and you are all pretty close to my heart now. A lot of life-changing events happen there in my own litle SPN world.

-Caladrius

* * *

**Chapter 2: "In the Evening" / "In the Light"**

**April 29, 1993**

**9-years-old Sam**

**14-year-old Dean**

It could have been a trick of the light.

The room was dark, but some illumination always found a way to creep in from a shade not quite pulled or from the space at the top of the cheap fixture over a motel window. Sometimes the glow was from a TV left on, his father and Dean passed out in front of it. Of course, the truth was that he hated when they left the TV on. Sam couldn't sleep with that kind of noise, and if the channel happened to air the National Anthem at 3am and then go to static...well, images of one of Dean's favorite movies, _The Poltergeist,_ would come and haunt him with thoughts of a little girl being swept into the realm of the dead and damned. ("You know, that could happen, Sammy. So don't talk to the TV.") And Dean, in all of his budding adolescent glory, would snicker and leave the younger boy wondering how truthful he was being.

The TV wasn't on tonight, and the light from the window was predictable. Nevertheless, two hours earlier Sam had heard the click and seen...something...from the tiny coat closet near the bathroom door. The opening was a straight shot of about eight feet from his cot which had been rolled out of said closet two days earlier when they had checked into this random Midwest town.

The cracked door was a sliver of darkness watching him. Again. Though Sam desperately wanted to believe it was just a trick of the light, the cold fear seizing his heart whispered that it was actually the shine on a pair of eyes. It _had _to be eyes. It couldn't have been a button, or the mini vacuum cleaner, or anything like that because after the first sleepless night Sam had _thoroughly _inspected it when the sun was safely up.

Despite his precautions and against all reason, here it was again, all glossy and just a little reflective.

Sam bit the inside of his cheek to stay awake and watched it all night, and as far as he could tell, it watched him back.

Impossibly, it didn't blink, and it didn't move, and when Dean stumbled out of his bed to hit the head somewhere around 5am, it was still there and showed no signs of disappearing. Sam wanted to say something, do something, maybe, like cough loudly, attract his brother's attention...and then what? Say, "Hey, Dean, I think there's a monster in my closet"?

Hell no.

If Sam was just imagining things, and there was a good chance he was, Dean would never let him hear the end of it. A Winchester should know the difference between imagined creatures and reality, right? Monsters were the _family business_, after all. It's why Dad wasn't even here tonight, or last night, and probably wouldn't be around tomorrow. Dean was the only one Sam could even really connect with until recently. It wasn't that Dean was a total prick, but lately his personality had become unpredictable and moody. Insufferably superior. So when Dean stumbled back into bed after a thirty-second solid stream of Coca-Cola runoff, Sam said nothing. What was there to say?

Being a member of this family was _fantastic_.

* * *

**April 30, 1993**

**The next morning**

Sam was dressed and ready for school by 6:30am because there was nothing else to do when the sun came up except check the closet, again. Of course, while it seemed the most logical time of day to search a closet in which one suspected a monster was dwelling, Sam had to face the fact that it was also the time of day he was least likely to find anything supernatural.

_Dammit._

Of course, It was only at night, in the darkness, in the complete _stillness_ that he saw the eyes, felt the stare. As soon as sunlight squeezed through the blinds in horizontal stripes, it evaporated as did much of the fear. This whole mystery was infuriating.

His fear of it was infuriating.

Instead of dwelling on his lack of manliness, he turned his attention to the other infuriating creature in the room.

Sam perched on a chair and watched his brother in the twin bed sleep like a hibernating bear cub, complete with intermittent growls. There was a kind of chaotic purity in it: arms sprawled, half under a cover, half not, hair in a crazy nest-some of it plastered to the side of his face, the string of drool at the corner of his mouth.

At 7:15 Sam slid off his seat and approached Dean's bed, shaking his shoulder.

"Get up, Dean. We'll be late."

His brother's response was a wet horse snort. So nice to be able to sleep so...unconcerned.

"Unng..." He buried his face in the pillow and mumbled something.

"What?"

Dean turned his head, "I said, Fuck school."

Sam gave him a withering look. Dad didn't like that language (at least not from his sons' mouths). If this was the extent of the famous "teenage rebellion," then Dean was kind of pathetic.

"Bravo. Dad's not here and you said a bad word." Sam was underwhelmed and tired. He turned around and went to collect his things.

"I'm awake two damn seconds and you are already a little bitch." Dean yawned. "Why don't you give it a try, Sammy. Just say it. Say 'fuck' one time. You know you want to. It'll wipe that bitchlook right off your face."

Sam sighed. He was too tired to play the game this morning. Ignoring his brother completely, he opened the tiny fridge unit and pulled out his brown lunch bag.

Dean sat up, a pillow and half a blanket becoming dislodged from the entire bed in the process.

"Hey."

Dean was staring at the carefully made cot, and then their eyes met. There was a question mark embedded there, and Sam had to tread lightly. His brother sometimes seemed like a hormonal idiot, but there were a few things he still excelled at. One of them was being a Nosy Big Brother.

As if to confirm Sam's fears, Dean peered at him searchingly and said, "What's wrong with you? What time'd you get up?"

Sam said nothing. It was patently impossible for Dean to have figured everything out from that short exchange, and he wanted to keep it that way. He stuffed a giant history textbook into the the rucksack his father once carried in Vietnam. Sam supposed he was the one to inherit it because he actually carried books in it. Otherwise, Dean would have claimed it on principle.

"Hey, I'm talkin' to you."

"Get up, Dean."

"Don't tell me what to do. I'm not going today. We're just gonna watch cartoons until our brains bleed out. I'll tell Dad you weren't feeling good."

Sam took a deep breath and exhaled. "Some of us don't hate school, okay?"

Dean grunted. "Man, I already hate _that_ school. More than others. What the hell is with those big doors? Like, putting the 8th grade in a whole other wing makes the day drag. Watching the high school girls across the parking lot do gym is a perk-nice, by the way. Have I mentioned that?-but I can't bump into you babies ever."

"And that's a bad thin?-oof"

Dean whipped his pillow at Sam unexpectedly. On any other day he could have caught it or avoided it; he had been training at least for that much. Not this morning. While it slapped harmlessly into his gut, it had enough mass to make him stagger back. Ugh, _dammit Dean! Is exposing all of my weaknesses your job?_

"See? Look at that. That's what I'm talking about." Dean pointed at him. "What if some kid starts giving you trouble? I won't even hear about it until it's too late."

Sam wanted to throw the pillow back at him, but he wasn't up to speed and that would mean risking some jab about his girlish form or something. Instead, he tossed it to the side even though throwing a pillow on the floor made him cringe inwardly.

"Dean, I don't need you to know what happens to me every second of every day," he huffed. "I can take care of myself."

"I'll be the judge of that. You know, Dad said this was gonna be a real short job." Dean looked momentarily disappointed and Sam's heart sank. "Bet he would've taken us if it'd been the weekend. I'm itchin' to hunt something, to get _out, _man. This place makes me twitchy." His eyes glittered with the thought of imagined adventures with Dad, no doubt, and then he seemed to remember Sam was in the room. "But he didn't, and we'll probably be gone by Sunday, so let's just sleep."

"Dean..."

"It's not worth it, Sam. The more you talk, the harder it'll be to get back to this dream. Shut yer cake hole and turn on the TV." So saying, Dean flipped himself in one motion to land face down, case closed. Still. Silent.

Sam took another deep breath and stared at the ceiling. To be able to sleep would be amazing right now. He could nap, maybe, if it was light out but _only_ if it was light out. The problem was that Sam really wanted to go to school today. He wanted the structure. He wanted...he wanted _out_ too_. _Unfortunately, there were rules.

"Dean, please. You know I can't go without you."

Submission.

The silence continued for a few more seconds and then his brother sat up. Dean ran a hand through his wrinkled hair, purposefully causing it to stand on end cartoonsihly. He turned to his brother and grinned like a moron, squeezing a half smile out of Sam. Morning comedy was still one of Dean's merits.

"School is stupid."

"Look in a mirror. You'll fit right in."

"Ooooooo smartass Sammy. Good one. Spoken like a kid who needs to smell my armpit." He pantomimed some kind of wrestling move with his arms.

"Seriously, Dean." Sam finally gave him the eye. "Can we go?"

Dean flopped back onto the bed with a huff. "Waaaaaaste of my time. Give me one good reason why I should."

"There are high school girls on the bus."

One comedic beat later and Dean jumped out of bed. "Oh man, those girls..." he raced into the bathroom for the paradoxical "washing up" that involved more mess than cleaning. After wiping the back of his mouth on his hands, Dean shimmied into a pair of jeans lying in a puddle at the side of his bed and ran his hand through his hair again.

Was it sad that Sam had already prepared motivation that involved Dean's current greatest weakness? No. It was survival. Somehow Dean knew something was wrong, and he'd make him stay home and accompany him watching Cartoon Express, and then Sam wouldn't be able to turn in the assignment he had worked on for hours yesterday. He had taken pride in it because, hey, his teachers could actually be pleased.

Thankfully, Dean asked no further questions, made no more fuss about what was "wrong," and the ride to school was blissfully uneventful.

* * *

Osseo, Wisconsin Elementary School. Fourth grade. The entire population of this town was under 1500 people, so everyone knew everyone in a place like this except Sam Winchester. He kept his head down and a tight hold onto the strap of his father's rucksack which stood out because it wasn't new or trendy. He made up for the difference of it by trying to blend in, stay in the background, not cause any scenes or draw too much attention to himself because kids were kids wherever they went. And school was school. And Sam was good at it, but two nights of no sleep and anxiety was enough to make any 9-year-old a wreck, even if he was a quiet wreck. He was on his way to lunch to sit at a corner of a table no one noticed.

"It's Sam, right?"

Startled, Sam stopped walking. Mrs. Appleton was a round, thirty-somethinging woman with glasses and a mass of wavy hair pulled up behind her head. Remembering his name after only two days was a feat, but not one he'd cheer for. He felt under a microscope, edgy. "Yes, ma'am."

"Sam, I just wanted to compliment you on that essay you wrote about the importance of the judicial system. Honestly, since you only just arrived I told you I would give you an extension, but you got the whole thing done on time with the rest of the class. And it was very well-expressed. What school district did you come from?"

Sam's heart pounded with a confused mixture of pleasure and fear. To be praised...that made his face redden slightly. To be asked the question...his toes went cold.

"Petrosky. Petrosky, Michigan," he replied woodenly. It's true, that's where they had been last (for three weeks), and there was no point in lying. After only a couple days here he already had a suspicion she was one of "those" teachers-one who paid attention to details. Students usually detested them because they had a habit of making phone calls home.

A phone call home would be...disastrous.

"Well," Mrs. Appleton smiled, "I hope you are adjusting to life here all right." She turned her head and leaned down a little, a non subtle gesture that she was hatching a conspiracy or about to ask him something personal. "Did I see correctly that you have a birthday coming up in a couple of days? The big one zero?"

Crap. Was it almost May already?

She waited with a smile while Sam felt the blood slide from his face. That clinched it. Mrs. Appleton wasn't just one of "those" teachers, she was a "good one"-a teacher who wanted to get to know him, who might easily check up on him. Build a rapport with him. Ninety-nine percent of the time those kinds of teachers were the best for quiet, troubled kids, but not for Sam and he knew it. He was already fully aware that he was having...an unusual childhood, one that became increasingly complicated the more questions teachers asked.

"Yeah. May second."

The rest of the conversation was a blur full of one-sided smiles. It was cruel, really, to have teachers like her. Cruel for them. There would only ever be two people in his whole world who could ever really know him...and that was only if they ever wanted to.

Vaguely, Sam wondered how his brother was doing. Would he even live to make it to high school at this rate? Sam had only known what their father was doing "for a living" for a couple of years, but by the time Dean told him, his brother was already counting down the days until he could routinely go out with with their father to hunt and kill monsters and possibly get killed himself. Sam knew he was an interruption to Dean's plan of getting on with his hunting life with his idol; it didn't take a genius to see that.

He was tired and everything felt hopeless.

Mrs. Appleton's hand on his shoulder startled him out of his unpleasant meanderings, but her smile was genuine, even if her interest was worrying. Her praise had been very nice and he focussed on that, on the sound of her voice, which had a kind of cheerful quality to it. She thought he was exceptional. She thought he was someone who had "potential," who wasn't just a permanent stumbling block to a reckless career path.

Yeah, well...she was the only one.

* * *

**Flash Forward**

**November 15, 2005**

**22-year-old Sam**

**26-year-old Dean**

Dean was late from the beer run, but getting into a rhythm of living and moving with Sammy and without Dad (at least for the moment) was still a hit or miss thing. As in, Sammy liked rhythms and Dean was much more go-with-the-flow. He had never actually _timed _a beer run before, and how was he supposed to know that the place carried back issues of _Busty Asian Beauties_? It was his American Male Duty to appreciate one or two...or three magazines...before settling on the one worth his hard-earned credit card fraud.

As soon as he opened the door, however, he knew he had been gone too long. Sam was sitting at the motel table, hunched over Dad's journal, flipping pages with a certain unhappy look his brother had come to recognize as _thinking too damn much about things_.

Dean shut the door and tilted his head. He paused expectantly.

Sam didn't move and he didn't look up.

"Hey."

"Hey." Mumbled.

Dean walked further into the room, set the case of beer on his bed, threw the bag with the magazine onto his pillow_ (See you lovely ladies later-Big Brother time now)_ and peeled off his outer coat while watching Sam's back.

"What's going on. Did you find something? You figure out where Dad is going next?" Dean carefully approached and looked over his brother's shoulder.

Sam shook his head.

"No, nothing on that front...but," He flipped pages one at a time, as if hoping something would magically fall out.

"But?"

"But, Dean, I don't get it. There's...something missing from Dad's journal. Are you sure this is everything? Maybe there's another one?" Sam was troubled.

"Missing?" Dean looked down at the worn, leather-bound book and half shook his head. "This is what he left. The rest was just, you know, what's in the Impala."

Sam stopped his relentless page-turning and pursed his lips, his eyes on some distant fixed point.

"Maybe he hid something in there I didn't see." Sam stood up (_jeez, getting tall there, Sammy?_ A couple weeks into their reunion and Dean was still getting used to it.)

"Keys?" his "little" brother held up his hand as if he was somehow owed it. Yeah, right. Dean was quickly getting irritated with the mystery.

"Okay wait, rewind for me here. What do you think is missing?"

Sam tilted his head and gave him an annoyingly baffled look as if his older brother should have already guessed it.

"Come on, Sam, I don't read minds. Just spill it." Dean couldn't help the spike in his tone.

Sam took a breath and put his hands on his hips the way he did when he was "settling in." He glanced at the door and pressed his lips together before answering.

"Osseo, Wisconsin."

Dean blinked.

_Oh. Oh shit. Shit_.

_That._

Dean backed off and soberly nodded, irritation giving way to the flash of a bad memory. Of course the first long alone time Sam would have with Dad's journal _that _would be what he looked for. Should have come right back from the beer run. Damn those beautiful Asian women and their busts.

"Yeah. It's not in there," he said quietly.

Sam swallowed and sighed. He looked oddly relieved that he hadn't been alone in this search.

"So, you looked too?"

"Yeah, dude. And there's nothing in the Impala I don't know about. Trust me on that."

_Dammit, Sammy. Don't go there. Don't go back there._

Sam threw his arms into the air in exasperation. "Everything else. Literally. Like a Wikipedia run-down of every case, every monster Dad fought is in there but that one. Why? I mean, didn't he _care?_"

"I don't know, why don't you ask him when we catch up to him?" Dean grimaced. Yeah, that would go _so_ well. Great idea, Big Brother.

Sam laughed, and it was depressed and so very drenched with hopelessness.

"Thanks but no thanks. I just wanted to..." Sam shut down, and whatever he was going to say was related in an offhand gesture towards the journal.

"Hey, if it's not there, it's not there. Let's have a brew and watch something plotless on the tube." Dean said it over his shoulder as he crossed to his bed and ripped open the top of the cardboard case with much more force than was really necessary.

"Even if it's not in the journal, the _thing,_ is still out there, Dean. Still..." he had a hard time saying it, "..._feeding_."

Dean looked up. Sam was facing away from him, his hand at the level of his eyes and the big brother remembered. He remembered Osseo, Wisconsin. He remembered Sam so broken that he didn't-couldn't- speak to _anyone_ for two weeks when he turned ten.

Fuck. They couldn't go back to that, not now, not after they had just gotten back together. It had been two whole years since they had even talked before Dad took off without a word. The fact was that Dean had _missed_ this kid, and he wasn't going to just let him just disappear again without a fight.

"Hey, hey." Dean pulled Sam's shoulder. He cracked a beer and put it into his brother's hand. He took that long, lanky arm and _made_ him sit down on the couch. "There's time to figure it out, Sammy. But not tonight." Dean sat down next to him, knee to knee, and grabbed the remote. He hazarded a glance at Sam's lost face, and even at 22, hardened by their lives, _changed_, all Dean saw was little Sammy-innocent, injured, confused. Nothing he could do about that.

_Goddamn it, Dad!_

_(to be continued...)_


	3. Ch 3: I Disappear

Summary: Sam and Dean have conversations with girls with varying degrees of success. As Sam's sleep deprivation increases so does Dean's worry, and it begins to become clear that something is _wrong_.

As always and forever, thanks to Agelade who takes the time to read over my crap while simultaneously writing a darn fine season 9 for SPN! :D

* * *

**Chapter 3: "I Disappear"**

**14 years ago**

**Sam 9-years-old**

**Dean 14-years-old**

The cafeteria was bustling with lunch lines, lunch ladies, and the clack of formed plastic trays. Boys and girls who bought their food were directed and constantly watched by zealous teacher monitors who made sure hands were kept to themselves and conversation was at an acceptable level.

Sam, with his peanut butter and jelly sandwich, slipped in under the radar. Eyes to the floor but attention on the periphery, he made his way to the corner table as he had yesterday and sat heavily. Two nights of no sleep was taking a toll and he knew it. As long as the sun was up, the irrational fear appeared to be gone, and that's when it was hardest to resist the siren call of unconsciousness.

But school was no place to sleep; it wasn't safe here either, surrounded by strangers. Osseo Elementary was generally calm. Nice. The worst altercation he had seen so far involved a shove in a lunch line which resulted in a principal visit for the guilty party. Still, being nomadic had instilled a kind of paranoia of other people. Even mini ones.

So, it was with the greatest embarrassment that several undefinable seconds later Sam was suddenly half woken from midbite in his sandwich (Dean's handiwork) by the gentle sound of a tray connecting with the table surface. Yes, midbite. A little piece of jelly dropped to his plastic baggy and he looked up quickly to see if anyone had noticed, to make sure he still had all of his stuff. And then he reddened to the tips of his ears as he made eye contact with a girl. With grape jelly all over his chin.

Oh, so smooth. So smooth. Thank God Dean was in an entirely different wing of the building.

She was very pale-that was the first thing Sam noticed-with sandy blond hair gathered at the back and straight cut bangs that were too long and had to be pushed to the side. It left one of her blue eyes in perpetual shadow. The other looked sunken. Her clothes were plain, worn, and when she looked up at Sam from her square of cheese pizza her expression was apologetic, as if she was sorry he had to see her.

Sam's chest squeezed. With little effort she could be collapsed to the size of a milk carton, and while his policy was to keep to himself, it was rare he met someone who so obviously looked like her life was shittier than his own.

"Um. Hi." He tried, as he hastily wiped his chin with a napkin. He spoke softly. She seemed about to shatter from her own weight.

She was still.

"I'm Sam."

Silence.

Sam searched his memory. He hadn't seen this girl at this table yesterday, so maybe they had something in common.

"Um, are you new here too?"

At this, the girl shook her head. "This is my normal seat. I've been...sick for a few days."

"Oh." Sam's eyebrows drew together. It was true-she didn't look well. "I'm sorry." There was a second of silence and then he prompted. "Are you...feeling better?"

She hesitated and then shrugged half-heartedly.

"It doesn't matter. Mommy said I had to go to school so she could work."

Sam felt a lump in his throat and couldn't swallow it down. This was bad because...because he hurt for her. She took a shuddering breath and then looked at him from under her lashes and said, "My name is Amber."

Sam sat up. He was wide awake. She was connecting with him and...and she shouldn't because he wasn't going to be here for very long. He couldn't be a friend. And yet, he felt a tug. A pang.

"Are you in 4th grade too?" _Shut up, Sam. Eat your lunch._

She shook her head again. "Third grade." She pushed her tray shyly towards him. "Do you want my pizza?"

Sam blinked at the offering and then pursed his lips before putting on his kindest smile and lifting his half eaten sandwich. "Nah, I'm good. PBJ. My brother made it. He'd be pissed if I ate cafeteria food over his gourmet." _Stop joking. Stop._ Sam slid the tray back to her and willed her with all of his might. _Eat this._

Amber's lips gave Sam a Mona Lisa smile. Her tiny fingers reached towards the slice of pizza and she picked it up to nibble a mouse-sized bite from a corner. It made him feel better somehow.

He cleared his throat. "Do you have any brothers or sisters?" Sam just...couldn't...stop. And that was weird. But he was tired, and she was sad and lonely and sick and no one listened to _her_ either.

Amber paused and then shook her head. "Just my mom. My Dad left on a hunting trip when I was five."

_A hunting trip._ Sam swallowed.

"That's a...long hunting trip." _Not so smooth, idiot._ But Sam's defense was that he was blindsided by the similarity on even that point. Figuratively.

"He's not dead but he's not coming back. I know that much." Her whole body shuddered with the confession: "I'm a lot of trouble..."

"Hey," Sam said with sudden intensity, "It's not your fault."

Her eyes filled immediately and Sam was left floundering. Did he...did he just make a little girl cry? He had to get himself together. His emotions were raw. Everything about her was just...hitting all the wrong notes. Or the right notes. No, wrong. But still, to make her cry? He took a deep breath and soothed it out.

"I don't believe it's you. I just don't believe it. Adults do stuff...and they hide things and maybe they don't realize things. I mean. I mean, my Dad's around, sometimes, and he tells me almost nothing when he _is_ there." _Dean would murder me right now. What am I saying? Shut up, Sam!_ "So...don't just think it's you. Okay?"

Amber pursed her lips. She nodded and then picked up a napkin to push at her face. When she pulled it away, she looked somehow sicker, paler, and Sam's stomach fell.

"Sam, I'm really tired..." Her voice was so small.

He put down his sandwich.

"How about you go see the nurse? Even if your mom isn't home to pick you up from school, you could lay down for awhile, right?"

She swallowed and nodded, and then Sam did something he had never done before. He climbed out of his seat and abandoned his things for five minutes to call a table monitor over.

Amber was on his mind for the rest of the day. It was impossible, after that, for her not to be. Sam poked himself in the arm with his pencil during math class to keep alert, to stay awake, to refocus. Somehow her problems felt worse than his own, as impossible as it was. But he had to let her go or it would be harder later.

_For her_, he reminded himself.

* * *

At 3:12 when Sam stepped onto the bus Dean was already in the aisle, pointing to the inside of the bench seat. Sam kept his head down here too because this town was so small that the elementary kids rode with junior high and high school kids. The high school boys, especially, could be the biggest dickwads to anyone they wanted to push around. Not that Sam had anything to worry about on that front; any kid who tried to pick on the quiet little brother had to go through Dean, and Dean was not just all talk when it came to bus altercations. Still, Sam disliked meaningless confrontation and so he did what he always did on the bus: he shut the sounds out of his ears, watched his feet, and slid into the green bench, rucksack on his knees. Only when Dean had plopped down next to him, feet in the aisle like Hadrian's Wall, did his eyes find their way from his feet to the window at his side. Only then did he breathe.

"How was school?" Dean asked.

Sam blinked. _How was school? _Dean never asked him questions like that. His brother's eyes were fixed on him and he felt a probing stare. Sam inspected the dimpled green vinyl of the seat in front of him and ignored the bone-weariness. An image of Amber's pale face floated in his memory.

"Fine. How was school for you?"

"Um." Sam felt Dean's attention shift and he hazarded a glance up. Dean was staring off at the front of the bus, his eyes already glazing. "Oh, sweet Jesus, there she is." He sat straight up as the object of his attention made her way, laughing, towards them.

_So, yeah. Good talk_, Sam thought. But it was fine because his plan had been to distract Dean anyway from too many questions. There was no way in hell Dean was going to pull out of him that he had had an honest-to-God conversation with a _girl._ Or that he hadn't slept in two nights for that matter. The way his brother had been acting lately, it was bound to become a problem. His brother began an ambitious round of flirting with what looked like an 11th grade blond cheerleader-type, while simultaneously watching behind them and in front of them for...what? Danger? Of course danger. Children were dangerous even when nothing supernatural was involved, and he and his brother were complete outsiders here in a town where everyone knew everyone.

Sam concentrated on the sound of his brother's voice to help him stay awake-not that it was entertaining or impressive in any way. Dean's lines sounded like something from a TV show: "Hey, sweetheart. I saw you at P.E. Are those shorts legal in Wisconsin?"

At some point when they were littler, Dean's obsession had been chiefly with cars. That was easy to understand because cars were fast, cool, and fixable. When, exactly, did girls start to climb the ladder of importance? It just proved that Dean was...changing. In ways. Some of those ways were making Dean harder to live with. Some of the changes worried Sam, though he wouldn't admit it. What if Dean changed into an adult like their father? Overnight? Dean already idolized the man, patterned himself after him, liked the same things their father liked with almost comedic perfection. It might have been comedic except that their father was hardly Father Of The Year. For one thing, he was never _there._

What if Dean became like that? What if he became the stranger their father was? Sam shuddered. He had the irrational desire to hold onto Dean's shirttail like he used to when he was younger. The connection had solidified his physical proximity to the only other person in this world he knew, and, as a child, it was a lifeline-a source of comfort.

But Sam was trying to grow out of that habit.

Sam leaned forward, put his forehead onto the seat in front of him, and for maybe 20 minutes he slept like that. It was a surreal kind of jostled sleep covered in swear words and the smell of gum, and the sounds of happy and guileless children all talking, laughing, breathing...

Breathing...

_Sam._

_Strange..._

Breathing.

_Sam..._

_Who are you? Do I know you?_

_Sam, I'm leaving with Dad for a few weeks. Mac and Cheese is in the cupboard. I put a gun under your pillow. Keep the door locked until we get back. This place has cable, so knock yourself out. Just make sure you get some sleep. Dean smiles and pats him on the shoulder. You're big enough now. _

_No, Dean._

_Come on, Sam, you knew this day was coming. Dean loads a bag with guns. Big guns. Small guns. Me and Dad have a job to do. _

_Don't Dean. Please don't...at least, take me with you._

_Ready to kill something, Sammy?_

_Silence..._

_I don't want to kill anything._

_Gotta stay home, Sammy. You aren't ready. You'll know when it's time._

_Sammy, don't cry. You aren't a baby. Be a man. Sam. Sammy._

_Dean, I'm cold._

"Sammy, wake up."

Sam jolted awake, an icy shiver down his spine, and in his mind's eye he saw a mirror-like shine in a place it shouldn't have been, and for a second his name had sounded strange in his ears. Instinctively he grabbed Dean's shirt, frantic for some reason he couldn't remember.

"Sam?"

Sam blinked. He was on the bus. Right. He dropped Dean's shirt as if it was made of molten lava and he let a suspicious Dean pull him out of the seat onto the drop off curb near the gas station, and he was quiet. But he was thinking of the closet at the motel.

Where _it_ was...

If it was nothing, then it was nothing. If it was nothing, then he was just jittery lately. Dad had recently come back from a trip that was, like, a week long. It was normal to feel jumpy. Other children had routine fears about dark rooms- his was nothing new. But maybe, just _maybe_, what they _thought_ was just routine was...something else. And maybe that "something else" was in the closet in the motel room, watching him. Waiting.

Suddenly a weight was lifted from his shoulder. Sam felt the rucksack drag down his arm for a split second and then was gone. He berated himself for having to blink twice to stop and get his bearings.

"Hey Sammy, this thing's gonna put you in the dirt." Dean hefted the bag onto his own shoulder and scanned the road before looking down at him again. "What's wrong with you? You're like a space case. Not sniffing whiteout or eating paste in that class, are you?"

And Dean was in douche mode apparently. Again. Sam's tired face reddened as he remembered grabbing Dean's shirt on the bus. Embarrassed and confused and irritated, Sam's expression fell into something hard as he grabbed _his_ bag off of Dean's shoulder and took the weight, _his _weight, back. "I can carry my own stuff."

"Whoa. Alright already," Dean put up his hands. Sam saw the look of worry in his brother's eyes as he quickly turned around. A little bit of the Old Dean. Or...the younger Dean whom he _used _to ask to check his closets for him. And under the bed. But Sam didn't want to be the nervous little brother anymore. He had to grow up. He _had_ to or he would be left behind. If his father was man enough to stake a vampire without batting an eyelash and Dean was totally ready to do the same, then he could deal with his...his boogeyman issues on his own. Yes, he could.

And despite those strong words to himself, despite Dean's veiled and sometimes extremely direct commands to explain why Sam's glazed eyes were half-focused on his plate of macaroni and cheese like he could see the future in it, that night in bed there he was, staring at shiny eyes from his closet.

They were eyes. They had to be eyes, right?

Was it waiting for something?

That was it. He was going to get up and just walk over there-open that damn door, find the stupid shiny eye-like thing and get it _over_ with. Once he knew it was...whatever it was...he could sleep. _Sleep_. And then he wouldn't have to be subject to his brother's comments, he would keep his eyes open in school and continue to be worthy of Mrs. Appleton's notice...of Amber's tiny smile.

But he could not. He could _not_. He could not get out of bed. Something inside, something in his brain that trumped every fraction of logic he had managed to develop in his almost ten years of life, told him to _stay away_. It practically screamed it. It also told him that if he looked away or fell asleep, those eyes would emerge connected to some nightmare, and it would be on him so fast there wouldn't be time to shout. To cry out. To do anything but die. And that same something that told him not to look away, to stay put, told him that he was the only target in this room. Just him. Sam Winchester.

Ironically, it seemed that the only one who had any real use for him was a monster.

* * *

**January 25, 2006**

**Flash forward**

**Dean 27-years-old**

**Sam 22-years-old**

Libraries made Dean itch. It wasn't that he hated words, it's just that there were so many in a library, all jumbled together, most of them completely pointless. Like any deep wilderness, one needed a guide to make it through, to survive it, to sift out the useless from the useful.

Luckily he had a smart little brother to work this part of their current case.

From across the open room, Dean observed Sam at a far table completely engrossed in a very old book. He was checking the words with his finger, making small, precise notes in a notebook. It was very Dadlike. Did Sammy even realize how much he looked like him when he was knee-deep in research? Would he be flattered by it? Probably not. But Dean might have been a little jealous.

He purposefully stealthed up behind his brother to survey the researcher's "nest" Sam had made- all very carefully arranged-pencils, pens, books neatly stacked and...something he hadn't seen in a long time.

He smiled and picked it up. "Hey, you still have this? Holy crap."

Sam jumped slightly, and Dean forgave him for not watching his back as he turned to see what his brother was talking about.

"Yeah, of course I do. Why wouldn't I?"

Dean shrugged lamely. "I don't know. I guess I just thought...it's kinda old. And..." his smile fell. Once upon a time he had been so excited to give this to Sammy. For his 10th birthday.

God, that birthday. Was everything going to remind him of it now?

"Dean, this was best present you ever gave me when we were kids...or ever," Sam academically explained as he took it from his hand carefully, reverently.

"Yeah, I didn't have it in me to top it," he laughed shortly but there was no joy in it.

Sam stared up at him quizzically and squinted his eyes. "Hey, what's with you?" He points, "you still wear that...stupid pendant I gave you for Christmas."

_Damn you, Sam. No fair going for the heart._ "I like this pendant, okay? It's...lucky." He cleared his throat and pointed at the gift as Sam started to clean up his nest. "I just thought, you know...with it being _that _day when I gave it..."

Sam flashed a brief smile that quickly escaped back to neutral. He nodded. "It's important to me, okay? Happy?"

Yeah. Yeah, actually, Dean was...and felt tremendously guilty for it.

Sam faced the books and began closing them. "And you can one-up it any year you stop giving me beef jerky or beer or porn for my birthday."

"What? Hell no, you need those things. That's like, road survival gear."

"Yeah, like the three quarts of motor oil, dashboard cleaner, and Turtle wax you asked for your birthday yesterday?"

Dean shrugged, "Gotta keep the baby happy, Sammy, or she won't take us anywhere. And you owe me a 'wax off' after we get this job done, Daniel-san."

Sam raised his eyebrows at that. "Right. Sure thing, Mr. Miyagi."

"Shhh!"

An imposing old woman with blue hair gave him the stink eye. Dean did the only mature thing given the situation: he stuck out his tongue.

"I've got what we need," Sam whispered obediently. He finished putting everything into the faded green rucksack and stood up.

Dean swallowed. His mind was still on the image of his little brother's face and that present. The surprise...and then the door opening...

Sam put a steadying hand on his shoulder as if the older brother was the one who needed comfort. And in a way, he was. That gift would only ever be a reminder of a time Sam should have just...let go. It shouldn't have been something he carried around for the next twelve and a half years of his life. None of it was.

Dean realized he had gotten stalled in the memory himself when Sam finally said, "I'm not thinking about it. Let's go find Dad or save someone."

Yeah. Sammy was becoming a good liar too.

_(to be continued...)_


	4. Ch 4: Dazed and Confused

Thanks to Agelade and for all reviews!

Summary: Sam writes three important letters and begins to succumb to sleep deprivation. Is school really the sanctuary Sam hoped it would be?

Flash forward: John Winchester is dead and Dean is not handling it well. Neither is Sam, but digging up the boogeyman seems like the _last_ thing his brother should be doing...

* * *

**Chapter 4: Dazed and Confused**

**May 1, 1993**

**Sam: 9-years-old**

**Dean: 14-years-old**

Three nights, no sleep.

That morning, Sam had no patience for Dean's "fuck school" routine. His whining tone progressed to curious and then to demanding as Sam ignored him, zombie-like, while gathering his things. The clamor of a body exiting a bed registered somewhere in the back of Sam's mind as he walked woodenly and mechanically to the door to leave his older brother behind, rules be damned. Dean hadn't expected that at all.

"Hey. Hey! Sammy! Where d'you think you're going?"

"To school," Sam replied, banging out the door. School was a safe place right now. School was structure and sunlight and smiling teachers and kids who had normal problems like fighting over pencil cases and toys. School was a place away from that empty bed that he would never even _think_ of claiming in that motel room because "it's Dad's bed" even though the man was never actually there to sleep in it. Like, ever.

School was far away from a dark closet where something watched and waited for him.

Dean caught up to Sam a block away, his Converse All-Stars slapping the pavement. It was accompanied by a rushed huffing that was 80 percent flabbergasted and 20 percent still asleep.

"Sam. Seriously, dude, what the hell is wrong?"

Sam ignored the real worry in Dean's tone. He carefully did not make eye contact; the bags under his eyes weighed a hundred pounds and there was nothing he could say that didn't sound grouchy or bitchy and simply increase Dean's curiosity when what he wanted was to just have space to figure this all out on his own. His whole soul was tired and one big, raw nerve that Dean knew how perfectly irritate on Sam's best day. Today was a million years away from a day like a "best" anything unless it was the "best" he could do with a furtive ten-minute nap here and there and three nights with no sleep. Just how long could a person go without sleep before they just keeled over and died, anyway? What was the record for that? He'd have to look it up when he got to school...

Thoughts like that and monosyllabic answers and grunts to his brother's questions fended Dean off to the bus. It managed to get him to school, too. Sam had no plan for afterwards, however. He had to live through today. And then tonight...and then somehow every day and night after this and, dear Mom, I am so _tired_...

During math, Sam was forced to ask to sharpen his pencil several times. This was partially because he was quietly poking himself in the inner arm to keep from slumping over his word problems. The frequent trips to the pencil sharpener were uncomfortable (why did every kid in the classroom have to look at a kid sharpening a pencil? For that matter, why was the pencil sharpener always in the _front_ of the room?), but they also kept him awake. Barely.

Social Studies was little better. In her infinite wisdom, Mrs. Appleton combined a lesson on letter writing and history. Their assignment for 25 minutes was to write a letter to an important figure of the Civil War and demonstrate an understanding of three distinct contributions that figure made during the war or Reconstruction afterwards.

Sam stared at his paper. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them very wide, hoping the blue-lined paper would come back into focus. The Civil War and a bunch of _actually_ dead people seemed so far from his current troubles. So far away, in fact, it almost physically hurt. Or maybe that was just his head being tired. After a couple of minutes of what felt like a doze, Sam took a deep breath to get himself together and happened to glance up.

Mrs. Appleton was looking right at him, and the look was a "good one" teacher expression of deep concern. Maybe an "I might have to call home" look of concern.

_Oh shit. Write a letter, Sammy._

How long had he been out of it? With sweating palms, Sam let his eyesight focus on his right periphery, at the paper of a kid named Parker Thompson. Parker's letter started out:

"_Dear General Lee,_

_So I gess you lost the Civil War. That was a prety importnt thing you did. I hate to loose to. I hate it wehn my brother Kevin kicks me when we play Super Mario Kart and makes me loose."_

Jesus Christ.

But Sam's exasperation and momentary sense of superiority faded away. Brothers were _supposed _to fight over video games, after all. They were supposed to have a few things in common, compete over the same kinds of things. Right? But lately, in his own little world, the distance between him and Dean was growing. And it wasn't just the weird changes, either. Ever since Dad started to let Dean go with him on some hunts, his brother's eyes had changed. And then the two of them would talk about it in half phrases, truncated purposefully to keep Sam in the dark about details. Sam hated that most of all. Not from their father-he'd been keeping things from both of them for years-but Dean's hesitation to share the secrets with him put Sam always on the outside. Why couldn't they be like they were? Once upon a time, Dean was the greatest kid in the whole world, his personality notwithstanding. Maybe he still would be if his level of concern rose above Dad's edict to "take care of Sammy" like cleaning up after a pampered poodle. Like he was a chore.

Sam took a deep breath and began:

"_Dear President Lincoln,_

_How did you find the determination and the willpower and strength to take two broken halves of the country and unite them as one? How did you get the idea that these two disparate masses of people, with different cultures and beliefs, could ever possibly see eye to eye enough to join under one flag again?"_

Sam paused. He stared at his paper for a moment, and the words spilled out.

His letter was done in ten minutes. It was full of facts and Sam's spontaneous appreciation of them-of Lincoln and his work. It was suddenly easy to imagine how stressed out Lincoln must have been trying to reconcile families who had to fight each other for what they believed in, to survive. Empathy for that astronomical task had translated into respect and two pages of heartfelt correspondence. He hoped it was okay.

He could write another letter, maybe. He had plenty of paper here, and in a few more minutes, a freshly sharpened pencil. But who would he write to? Dean? Right. That would go over well. _"Why'd you write me a letter when you live with me? Idiot." _So, no thank you_._

Dad? Sam thought about it. His heart jumped at the idea of it...but then, he'd never know what the reaction would be to it. At all. If he wrote his father a letter, he'd read it while he was away. And then when he came back he'd probably never say anything about it, no matter what Sam wrote, even if it was important. And then it would eat at him and eat at him because he'd have to wonder what he thought about it. So, no. Not him either.

Maybe Bobby Singer? He seemed like a decent guy. And he had an actual address to which Sam could mail it. Sometimes when Dad was gone for a _really_ long time, Dean and Sam would stay with Bobby. His house was _huge_. It was filled with all kinds of weird things, giant books, and he had dogs that remembered Sam and Dean every time and who liked to play. Bobby himself was a tough guy, and a bit rough around the edges, but Sam and Dean had never felt unwelcome there. That was rare. But what could Sam talk about in a letter? Maybe history? It seemed like Bobby knew a lot of really random facts about antiquity and the past.

Sam picked up his pencil.

"_Dear Bobby,_

_Hi. It's Sam Winchester. I'm supposed to write a letter in this social studies class about someone important during the Civil War, so I picked Abraham Lincoln. Maybe he was an obvious choice. Do you know anything really cool about the Civil War? Are there any legends that they don't put in text books? You seem like the guy who would know those sorts of things. I hope business is going well. I'm fine and so is Dean. He's excited about high school girls. I got an A on a paper yesterday. Dad's been gone for awhile. I guess he is okay too. I know you won't be able to write back to this, since I don't know if we will even still be here when you get this letter. That's okay because I hope we visit soon. I miss South Dakota, though Wisconsin is kind of pretty. Maybe we can come stay with you this summer? We'd like that._

_Sincerely, _

_Sam Winchester"_

Sam reread his letter and smiled at it. Bobby would probably be surprised to get a letter from him. It might be a nice surprise-he hoped it would be. Getting the stamp might be a challenge, but he knew Bobby's address by heart. He'd get it there somehow.

Sam put down his pencil and sat back. The other students were still writing and the room was deathly silent except for the ticking of the round black and white clock next to the American flag and the sound of his blood rushing in his ears...

Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick...

_Sam...Sam..._

_Disgusted look. Packing a bag and turning away. I don't even know you anymore._

_Dean, don't..._

_Standing at the door. Dark eyes. You aren't one of us, Sam._

_Dad? Fear. Terror. Those words, finally said._

_Where are you guys going? Hang on, Dean. Wait. I can...I can. I can do it too, Dad!_

_Dean can handle it. You were a mistake, Sam. You're different._

_No._

_Please._

_Dad. Don't take Dean...Don't go. Please. Please! It's dangerous. I hate the hunting. I hate it! You could die. You and Dean could _die!_ We could all die, just like Mom..._

_Please. Let's just go away. Let's just be normal. Let's ignore the monsters and then nothing will happen. Nothing is going to happen._

_It's not that simple, son. If you don't choose us, then you are one of _them_. You're a monster too, Sam. A monster._

_An icy hand. Forehead. Who is that? Who are you? What do you want from me!_

_A chilly smile. Cold face. Shiny eyes._

_So much fear..._

The sound of Parker hitting the paper with his pencil jolted Sam awake. He looked over, startled, but the boy was simply writing the word "Becase." That was it. And then Sam noticed he was slouching in his seat and his eyes were wet. Had someone been talking? His heart hurt in his chest and a chill seized him. He swallowed hard and sat up. This was bad. If he did nothing for-he checked-eight more minutes he'd be asleep. Really asleep.

Seriously? Still eight more minutes to go? Sam cast his eyes around the room, and only a few of his classmates were actually finishing up. Technically, he had time for one more letter and, honestly, Sam was kind of warming to this whole letter-writing thing. It felt nice to be communicating with humanity, even if it was delayed communication through pencil and paper. But who else would he want to talk to? Who else could inspire him to reach out like this?

And then, it hit him.

Amber.

Sam sat up and stared at the blue paper. The idea of writing to her made his face burn. It...woke him up. His palms started to sweat in earnest and his fingers slid across the glossy yellow paint of his pencil as he started to mentally compose a letter to that little girl who was fighting an adult world by herself and with a sick body. Yeah, he could write to Amber. Sam pursed his lips. She was only in third grade, so he had to be careful what words he picked but...but they had something in common. They had more than one thing in common.

Suddenly Sam didn't feel the need to sharpen his pencil.

"_Dear Amber,_

_How are you today? I hope you feel better. I just wanted to say it was nice to meet you. I also wanted to say I'm sorry. I yelled yesterday, but I wasn't mad at you. I hope you know that. I was mad at the people who left you alone. I was mad at the people who didn't say 'I'm sorry' to you. I am mad at the people who made you think you did something wrong. I'm mad at the people who make you say 'I'm a lot of trouble.' But I think your mom probably loves you a lot. I think you are a very strong person. I think you are doing a good job. And I think things will work out if you keep trying. I hope we can be friends._

_Sincerely,_

_Sam Winchester"_

Sam read his letter. He felt giddy, dizzy. He knew he had a crazy grin on his face, but he couldn't wipe it off until he reread it for the third time. And then he frowned. Boy, he certainly sounded like an angry kid. Hastily he scribbled in a postscript:

"_P.S. I get mad a lot, it's true, but I don't mean to make other people sad."_

Sam poked his chin with his eraser. Was this something she could read? The words seemed right for a third grader. His sentences weren't too long.

"_I hope we can be friends."_

Sam swallowed hard. _You shouldn't write that, Sam. You can't be her friend. You can't be _anyone's_ friend. _But despite the tone of his stern inner voice, constructed from the sentiments of his father and brother over the years, he couldn't bring himself to erase it.

Sam folded Amber's letter neatly and wrote her name, small, on the front. When he had tucked the letter into his rucksack, he stood up and walked to Mrs. Appleton's desk to turn in his assignment. He tried hard not to meet her eyes.

"Sam? Are you getting enough sleep at night? You're not watching TV until too late, are you?" Her voice was riddled with concern, and the irony of her suggestion would have caused Sam to laugh and laugh for a half hour like a moron had he not suspected that her next step would be to find his father's contact number in that rolodex she had somewhere and call him up to voice her worries...

Sam's cheeks went from red to white in the space of a second and the loss of blood pressure made him feel faint.

"Oh, my brother has a spring cold right now. He's been keeping me up for hours at night. But I think he's getting better." Did that sound okay? He was so tired. He may have said it a little too loudly.

"Oh dear. Older or younger?"

_Oh crap, please don't talk to Dean._

"Older."

She smiled and Sam felt his heart reach up into his throat and throttle him.

"Brothers can be a pain, can't they?"

Sam tried at a smile that said "yeah, you know it" and not "HAHAHAH WOW I WAS JUST THINKING THAT!" Because being level was extremely difficult right now.

He must have succeeded because she didn't press the issue. "Well, I hope your brother is over it by tonight so you can get some rest."

Sam nodded, agreed in some fashion, and casually turned around to return to his seat. Crisis had been averted for one more day, but this excuse wouldn't hold tomorrow. If he made it to tomorrow.

Walking to the cafeteria in line Sam experienced tunnel vision for the first time. Luckily he only bumped into the wall, not anyone else. He was careful not to do that. Thankfully, either none of the teachers saw him, or they chalked the blunder up to a child's clumsiness and didn't begin any messy inquiries. It was ironic, really, because Dad actually put him and Dean through balance _training_ for God's sake.

When the lunch line started to queue, Sam maneuvered his way around the sea of bodies once again. He thought of the letter in his rucksack, carefully tri-folded, with a girl's name on it, and he lost almost all sensation in his feet. Was it the sleep deprivation that was making him feel so...goofy? Or was it the presence of that letter, the thought of handing it over? Whatever it was, Sam was certain that his brain and entire body was on a collision course with some kind of wall.

The rucksack smacked onto the empty chair next to him and he sat down to await _her._

* * *

**July 25, 2006**

**Flash Forward**

**Sam 23-years-old**

**Dean 27-years old**

_Dad is dead..._

Dean wiped his sweating face on the rag and approached the back door. He had completed his inspection of the Impala, the wreck of the Impala. The destroyed, twisted, mangled remains of what used to be something so solid, so dependable, so...always there.

Fuck. _Do not think about Dad. _

And then his brain jumped right into what he would need to fix his baby-what he could use that was still left. The frame was a nightmare, and the engine and drive shaft were shot. There were a few spark plugs that had survived, maybe a fan belt.

_Goddammit, Dad. What happened to you?_

Half of the electrical system was too mangled and fused to consider, but wires were wires and they were cheap. Bobby had a lot of stuff around here, and when the boys arrived a day earlier he had put his hand on Dean's shoulder and said, "Anything you need, son."

_I'm not your son._

But all his baby would need would be TLC and time and a fresh coat of paint. She'd hum again and then...

"_I can't believe this, but he's going to make a full recovery." Not possible, Doc. Never._

Too much thinking. Stop thinking. Car. Think car. Think car.

Dean pushed through the back door. He was about to call for Bobby (he needed a new torque wrench since he had somehow out-torqued it trying torque Death in his mind) when he heard Sam's voice and two words. Two fucking words.

"...Osseo, Wisconsin?"

Dean stopped at the threshold of the library where Bobby kept a lot of books and a table and chairs. He stepped to the side and listened, his body sheltered from sight.

"Osseo, Wisconsin..." Bobby's voice was thinking.

"This would have been around...April and May 1993? Did he...did he ever happen to mention anything about what he was fighting?"

_Dammit, Sammy. Really? You really want to do this now? Haven't seen Bobby in years. Haven't been here for two days yet...don't we have enough to..._

"Yeah. I seem to remember a bit, maybe. From Osseo." Pause. "Didn't you...write me a letter or something?" He made a small laugh. "Some...history assignment?"

Sam breathed out and Dean could hear a smile in there.

"Wow, Bobby, that's...that's some memory. Yeah, yeah I did. It was on..."

"Abraham Lincoln, right?"

"That's it. That's the time and place." Sam was warming and Dean was cooling. A chill seized his spine.

"Yeah. He was tracking a boogeyman. Said he had it nailed down to the day and was tightening the net as fast as he could."

Silence.

Dean's heart pounded-pounded so damn hard that he could barely hear Sam's intake of breath. And then the silence got strange...

"Bobby, what did he say? What..." Dean could imagine Sam's face, his chin trembling. The words were all Sammy emotion. And then the pacing started. "What...did he say...happened?"

"Sam? You okay, son? Why don't you sit down..."

"Bobby, please!" Quieter. "Please...just. What did he say about it?"

A pause. Dean felt they were all perched on the edge of a cliff. Down there...down there they'd all break...but even Dean couldn't bring himself to stop it.

"Nothing."

"...N-nothing? He didn't...say what happened? He was right there and...and he didn't...he didn't say anything else?"

Bobby's voice was gentle, "That's what I'm tryin' to say. All he said was 'it didn't work out.' That's it. He never brought it up again and I didn't ask."

Dean heard the scrape of a chair and a heavy slump. The top of a scotch decanter clinked open and a drink was poured and set on the table in front of his brother.

"Now, what the hell is this all about, Sam? What's got you all shook up? Did you see the thing he was talkin' about?"

But Sam's bitter laugh dried the air.

"'It didn't work out?' _That_ was what he said. Wow. God...Dad..." And then Sam drank the shot and Dean bit the inside of his bottom lip so hard he could taste blood.

"Yeah, that's what he said." Bobby sounded sorry to relate it. His body sat down heavily in another chair. "You wanna maybe...talk about it? Maybe...sort this out?"

Damn. Sam.

"No, he doesn't wanna sort it out." Dean turned the corner and both men looked up. Sam's face was devastated, streaked with quiet tears, and surprised. Bobby less so.

"Was wonderin' if you were gonna join us, or if I was gonna have to start chargin' admission." Bobby sat back, his older, sympathetic yet calculating gaze probably coming to 20 conclusions.

"Dean." Sam stood up and that was when it hit him. _That little bitch. He planned for me to not be around._

"Sam. Stop. We're not doin' this." Dean pointed the rag at him with finality.

"Dean, Dad didn't leave anything in the journal, in the Impala. I just...Don't you think that's weird? Not saying anything? Not leaving anything behind?"

"No, it's not weird, because Dad didn't haveta talk about family business with anyone. _Anyone_. And it's over, Sam." Dean had to end it. Completely. There was no dealing with Dad's death _and _Sammy going back to a state of catatonia for...weeks.

"It's _not_ over. That's what I am trying to say!" Sam's voice rose above the sadness, slipped into anger. "Besides, Dad didn't talk about family business with the _family_, and isn't that the problem right here? Dad _never_ talked about it again. For God's sake, he just told Bobby 'it didn't work out,'" he gestured to the whole house.

"It didn't! Sam, it didn't work out. Now shut up about it. Don't look for it. Don't bring it up. For all we know, Dad went back and took care of it and just didn't tell us. Did you ever consider _that_?"

Sam's chest heaved. He clenched his teeth and shook his head. His voice was quieter. "Dean, you know what he said. Back then. This was on me. And, God, if it wasn't, if that was all a lie too, then..."

"Then what, huh? What, Sam? You couldn't forgive him? You couldn't leave it alone and just...fucking _leave it alone_?"

It was way too loud. Way too public. This wasn't how to handle this, Dean knew, but all he could think about was Dad. And Dad was gone. _That man...I _loved _that man._

"Dean, I am going to tell Bobby, and I am going to ask him for help." Sam enunciated each word and pointed at the ground resolutely. "This isn't family business. It's _my_ business, okay? Mine. I have..._have_ to do this."

The big brother closed in on Sam's personal space and he was both angry and more than a little afraid that Sam didn't back down at that point. Of all things, he had to back down to this. Sam was tall, but Dean's fear, his _resolve_, more than made up for the difference in height.

"Don't you tell me this is just your business. Don't you _dare_. I told you it was my fault. Mine. You wanna go back there, Sam? Really? Because you didn't talk for two weeks. I had to fucking dress a ten-year-old kid. Take him to the bathroom. You went so far away, Sam, I didn't think you were ever comin' back. And you wanna do this? Take us _both_ back there?"

Sam's face cracked.

God, this kid. What the hell. This kid brother who should just listen..._listen_ to himself. Listen to his big brother when he knew what was good for him. For them.

"Dean," Sam's voice was too gentle, "I'm not...I'm not that kid. Not anymore. I changed."

Dean's chest caved.

_Fuck, I know. I _know_ and that's why. No more changing, Sam. No more! If you change into something else, Dad said..._

"Sammy, you're all I have left. I'm tellin' you. Begging you. Leave this thing alone."

There were two seconds before Sam's shoulders sagged. His whole body language submitted, and he sighed deeply before he shook his head. He wiped his face with his hand and looked away.

"Okay, Dean."

"Sam, I mean it."

"Fine." It was only when Sam put up his hands and physically stepped away that Dean could take a breath and banish the red and fear and anger and the goddamn _loneliness. _

Dean glanced at Bobby. The man had the good decency to have his head down, his eyes hidden under the brim of his baseball hat-invisible in the room.

"Bobby, I broke your torque wrench. I'll replace it. In the meantime, you got any others lyin' around?"

The spell was broken. Bobby stood up. "Yeah. God, what? Broke my torque wrench? What the hell are you torquing out there, the Great Wall of China?"

Dean gave Sam one last look, but Sam was pointedly staring at a wall.

_Whatever. Keep out of it, Sam._

But he didn't.

Weeks later, when his baby girl was almost as good as new again, he saw it-Sam's notebook. It was on his bed. _Why the notebook, Sam? What were you researching?_ But Dean knew. He didn't have to even pick it up to know.

"I'm sorry, Dean."

Sam was at the door frame. Dean tried to keep everything neutral.

"I told you to let it go."

"I know. But I couldn't, and I have to get you to understand that."

Dean shifted his gaze to his brother's face who looked way too pitying. And guarded.

Jesus.

"What about 'leave it alone' did _you _not understand?" But he was keeping calm. The Impala was fixed. They had been making plans to leave Bobby's, to hit the road, and things had been...bearable. So much more bearable than that first week. But the memory of Dad's funeral pyre still kept him up at night and the edge wasn't far off.

"I know what you said," Sam stepped into the room carefully, "but look, I'm..." he tilted his head back and forth, "...okay. I mean, I'm still talking and walking. I'm not...gone, Dean."

Dean took a deep breath, wet his lips and turned his head, not liking the proximity this conversation was going towards things that felt somehow just buried.

"So?"

Sam looked confused, "So, what?"

"So, what did he tell you? Bobby. What did he say?"

Sam looked so relieved, so grateful at his response, that Dean had to let it go. He didn't want this conversation. He wanted his brother and his car and he wanted the road and he didn't care at that point exactly how they got there or where they went as long as they were moving in some direction.

His little brother picked up his notebook and flipped a page. He pressed his lips together and shook his head, "Not much, unfortunately. I mean, the lore on...on the boogeyman is so immersed in cultures around the world that it's hard to separate fact from fiction. And it doesn't help that it's used as a behavior-training concept. You know, 'Go to bed, be good, or...or'"

"It'll get you? Eat you?" Dean finished. He didn't know why that frown on Sam's face made him feel so vindicated. Sam was hardly over this, though his game face was getting better.

"Yeah. According to the lore, the so-called 'boogeyman' ranges from a demon, to an old man with a sack, to an amorphous bad spirit, and practically everything in between. The only thing that seems completely consistent is that it emerges from under a bed or a closet in close proximity to a bed and that it is almost inexorably connected to child fears."

Dean considered. "The truth of it is somewhere smack dab in the middle."

"Yeah, I was thinking that too, but," he shrugged his shoulders at his notebook, "with all of this lore, it's hard to find the middle." His face changed a little as he remembered. "Back...then...Dad said that it had a profile and pattern, but Bobby doesn't know what Dad was talking about except that he's pretty sure Dad nailed that much. And...we know he did. But what Dad knew about the profile?" Sam shook his head and sighed, "it's not gender, and it has something to do with birthdays, and Dad said he tracked it to Osseo..."

Dean interrupted that train of thought because it involved remembering. Remembering _that_ day. "Does Bobby know how to kill it?"

Sam looked haunted again, "No. Bobby has never heard of anyone ever killing a boogeyman. And Dad didn't either. Remember what he said..."

Dean waved his hand, "Look if we don't have a way to kill it, and we don't know its profile and pattern, then we are leaving it alone."

Sam stood up straight. "You're right. _We_ are."

Dean looked quickly at his brother's face. "Sam, this is a _we _thing if it's anything, you hear me?"

"Look, we have nothing to go on, now, but I'm not trying to hide this from you. Hate it, hate me, but Dean, I can carry this. I need to carry this." He raised his hands into the air. "See me? I'm carrying it."

"Yeah," Dean pushed his duffel bag, packed, into Sam's arms. "Carry this to the car while you're at it, bitch."

Sam smiled and took the bag. "Jerk." God. It was such a real smile.

"But hey," Dean stopped his brother with a hand on his chest before he could go two feet. "Swear to me you won't make a move on this without me. Swear it on something you won't break, Sam." And he was dead serious.

Sam swallowed, and that wasn't a good sign. "I'm not swearing anything, but I'll tell you what I find out. You have a right, okay, and I get that. I owe you."

"No, Sam, it's not about _owing_. You're my little brother..."

"Dean, please. I don't wanna fight about it. Please. Not now. I'm begging _you_ on this one."

Sammy's earnest little face._ Sammy. Why do you kill me, Sam? If I'm the good guy, then I let you go into this danger again. But if I try to hold you back...where will you go to get away from me? What the hell kind of choice is this?_

"Fine. Now go tinkle and give Bobby a kiss goodbye. I'll be waiting at the car with your two bottles of water and a coloring book for the road."

Sam smiled a six-year-old smile. "You always knew what I liked."

Dean grinned too, but it was a lie. Inside he was afraid-afraid of the end of it all...

(to be continued...)


	5. Ch 5: My Friend of Misery

Annnnnnnnd the plot thickens. A lot. :)

Thank you so much for all of the kind words. Note to self: MYSTERIES ARE HARD! Luckily, there's a little voice named Agelade (check her out! Her SPN pwns) whose enthusiasm for this story has kept it going.

Summary: Sammy wants to help, and gifts are exchanged.

Flash forward**:** a dream about Dad picks at the scab of memory for both brothers.

* * *

**Chapter 5: "My Friend of Misery"**

**May 1, 1993**

**Sam: 9-years-old**

**Dean: 14-years-old**

Sam sat in the lunchroom heavily. He yawned, and when he did his eyelids drooped which necessitated a hasty head shake to wake up. This was the cafeteria, a public place, and Dean's commands to watch his back were running on autopilot. Unfortunately, the combination of sleep deprivation and anticipation were doing a fair job of unraveling whatever reality Sam had left in the world, not that it was much.

"_Monsters exist, Sammy, and when they come out, Dad kills 'em. If you ever see something like a tooth fairy, you run like hell. Yell for me. Got it?"_

The truth was overrated. The truth sucked. What their father did for-let's be honest-a _hobby _had taken control of his life and it was turning Dean into something scary, especially now that his brother was getting stronger and faster. In a couple years when he had grown-up muscles for real, he'd ditch Sam to go do those things too. Eventually they'd have to leave Osseo, so what was the point of befriending people?

But...but Amber was different. They had a connection, he knew it. Even if they left this town, it wasn't like he'd _never_ see her again. And if he could help her a little, wasn't that just as important as what his father did? It didn't cost anything to reach out. It wouldn't affect Dean or anyone else, but maybe this was where he could start to make a difference too.

Blearily, Sam focused every ounce of attention he could muster onto the doors and looked for her. The longer he waited, the more surreal everything became. His senses first muddled and then went to triple overload-children's voices sounded like screams from Bedlam, trays and metal forks clanked and smacked, the lights in the cafeteria became bright, almost hot, and then dimmed to nothingness...

Silence.

_Sam...Sam...Sam..._

_It's better if you don't, Sam. You can't save me._

_Amber? He takes her hand. He smiles gently. It's okay._

_Strangers die everyday, Sam. _

_That's not a very 3rd-grader thing to say. Are you feeling okay?_

_I'm scared. I'm all alone. Something sees me..._

_Cold fingers. Hands. What do you mean? Do you know?_

_You can sense it, right, Sam? We're...so close..._

_Why are your hands like ice? Why are you so cold?_

_It's cold when you're alone. It's cold. It's cold when you're a monster._

_What? _

_Sam, your Mom always knew about you. She presses his hand sympathetically. Everyone knows. You know too, don't you? But you never say it. That's why you can't. You can't help me._

_Amber?_

_Her eyes are shiny._

_Call me, Sam Winchester._

"Sam?"

At the touch on his arm Sam sat straight up and startled the little girl with the sandy blond hair. She gasped and Sam had to back himself down from complete panic. What was...that just now? When he had been...nodding off? His name? Amber? He shoved it away and down, far down, so that he could damage control his completely ungracious and ungentlemanly wakefulness.

"Hey, Amber. Wow. I'm sorry, are you okay?" He felt his eyebrows come together and it almost hurt. He stretched his hand out and let it rest on the table a few inches from her arm.

To Sam's great relief, Amber swallowed and then smiled that very little smile.

"You were really asleep," she said.

"Oh, was I? Huh." That was scary. This wasn't the first time he had just passed right out in school. He was going to have to swipe a couple of Dean's treasured Cokes if he thought he had any chance of staying awake another night.

That thought led to an observation: Amber didn't look well either. She'd been pretty haggard yesterday, too, and the boy tried to decipher whether that meant she was worse today or not. Her face had been washed, but the skin was almost translucent under the fluorescent lights in the drop ceiling above them. If he stared too long, Sam thought he could see individual little blue veins in her neck and forehead. That couldn't be good.

"Hey, how are you doing?" He asked.

Amber pursed her lips a little and then shrugged. "The same."

There was a short silence-a silence in which Sam fumbled and felt under the microscope. Why was it so _hard_ to just be normal when he was talking to this girl? Oh. Right. Because there was nothing normal about him.

And this was a _girl_.

Thankfully his gaze dropped onto the chicken patty sandwich on Amber's tray.

"Hey, let's have a bite to eat, okay?" Anything to get some food in her. She really was the tiniest 3rd grader he had ever seen. As a show of good faith, Sam pulled out his brown bag lunch and dipped inside it for his PBJ sandwich. To his surprise the sandwich (which was almost twice its normal size, leaking peanut butter and jelly into the wax paper like the scene of a horrible evisceration) was accompanied by a Payday candy bar. It slid out onto the table and stared up at Sam as he stared down at it.

Holy crap.

"Did your brother make your lunch again?" Amber asked.

Sam had to close his mouth before he made a reply.

"Yeah...I think." His voice trailed off as he ogled the bleeding sandwich. Had Dean lost his freaking mind? Or wait, shit, did he grab the wrong bag? He had done _that_ before and it hadn't gone over well at all. In a reflex of pure terror, Sam grabbed the brown bag and inspected it. There was his name, all right. Right there-"Sammy" in black Sharpie. But there was something underneath it, fainter, scribbled in pencil:

"_Eat all of this or I swear I will punch you."_

Sam didn't know whether to laugh or be outraged, and the conflicting emotions the note engendered on top of the sleep deprivation threatened to turn him into a little barking madman. Man, when had Dean done this last night? Sam had been trying to fight off Dean's questions about why he was so out of it all evening, and so to combat sleepiness his brother packed him a lunch full of refined sugar and his most precious Payday bar? Man, he had been totally unfair to his brother.

Sam thought of his two nod-offs in school already.

_Screw it. I'm definitely eating this._

Despite his growing jerkiness, Dean came through in a weird way; right now, this carbohydrate overload was exactly what Sam needed. A shard of guilt for his brattiness the night before was replaced by an absolute hunger for sugar Sam didn't even know he had. He ripped into the white package and sank his teeth into peanutty caramel goodness.

Oh yeah. That was the stuff. Solid fuel to get him through the rest of the day.

"Looks like he did something nice for you," Amber acknowledged and giggled at what must have been an expression of complete bliss and relief.

That giggle was kinda pretty. He wanted to see more of it.

Sam smirked around his chew. "Yeah, and he threatened to punch me if I didn't eat it. It says right here on the bag." He pointed to it. "I need instructions with my lunch. Did your lunch come with instructions?" He motioned to her chicken patty sandwich with mocky inquiry and Amber's small laugh, as she shook her head, continued to roll over him like a warm breeze. His efforts were further rewarded when she picked up the top of her bun and bit into it. Yeah, it wasn't the protein, but at least it was something.

They ate for a few minutes in companionable silence while the madhouse of the cafeteria turned around them. Presently, Sam noticed that Amber had stopped moving. He could _feel _her watching him expectantly.

But she wasn't looking _at_ him, she was looking _toward_ him to the top of his rucksack, the faded and worn green burlap peeking over the edge of the table.

"That's a really old-looking backpack." She commented finally.

Sam followed her gaze and perhaps really noticed it himself for the first time through the eyes of someone outside of the craziness that was his family. It wasn't a child's backpack at all-it was far too big, and the style was more suited to war than school but...

The letter!

Sam jumped as he woke up with the memory.

"Oh, hey, um. I have this thing..." He turned to his pack and opened it. The letter was sitting right on top. To his credit, he didn't even self-consciously check to see if anyone was looking when he slid it across the table to her. "I...hope you don't think I'm...weird. I had to write this assignment..."

Holy crap, was it getting hot in here?

Sam babbled something about Abraham Lincoln, he thought, and then just shut his mouth entirely. Her matchstick fingers touched the paper, almost reverently, and began to unfold it.

"Wait!" he said, feeling like a crazy person. She froze. "I mean...um. Read it later, okay? Like, when you go home."

"Why?" she asked, her long bangs shuddering with the blink of her eyes.

"Because...because then it would be like getting a real letter. It's not...really like a letter if you read it in front of the person who wrote it, right?"

Amber stuck her tongue out just a little bit to lay on her bottom lip. It was a thinking thing. She was happy and excited and wanted to read his letter _right now_ and that alternately terrified him and made him exuberant past reason. But she nodded once. Hard. Almost as if it was the nod of a secret gesture of Deep Understanding.

She pulled the precious missive closer and then placed something of her own on the table. Amber's face was red and she bit at bottom lip nervously. She pushed it towards Sam after a few seconds of his just staring at the exterior of what appeared to be a little wrapped package. The "wrapping paper" was a piece of notebook paper that crayon had decorated with a childish yellow daisy bearing what appeared to be a little red dot. His name, "S-A-M," was penciled in at the bottom in blocky 3rd grade letters.

"What's this?" He asked stupidly.

She looked at him with such earnest brown eyes that he thought he might have to crawl under the table or be flattened under their weight. Instead of continuing to force himself up from it, he took it in hand, smiled at the wrapping, and opened it. A plastic ladybug ponytail holder fell into his palm. Upon a fast inspection he realized this was the one she was wearing yesterday, and it wasn't in her hair now. The ladybug was a little black, red, and white thing, a trivial piece of girl apparel Sam rarely took notice of, until yesterday. Until _her_. It sat in his palm now like a tiny living creature-precious and rare.

_She wore it yesterday. She probably wore it to school today. I bet she wears it everyday. I bet this is her favorite one if she even has more than one._

"I...can't take take this," he said. And he was an idiot because that didn't sound gentlemanly at _all_ but he just meant it was too much, too nice, too _everything _for him to have. And he didn't deserve it because he said he wanted to be friends but he _knew_ he was going to have to leave.

"Please take it." Her face was insistent. "Unless...it's stupid and you hate it."

Sam had the presence of mind to at least shake his head. "No! It's not. I just. I mean..."

He was doing this thing all _wrong_ and Amber was still smiling at him anyway. Did he really meet someone who _got_ him?

"But...why? Why give this to me?"

"It's an early birthday present," she said without hesitation.

Birthday?

Oh shit. What was today?

"It's tomorrow, right?" Amber's question was more like a statement. "But tomorrow is a Saturday, so I wanted to give it to you today."

Sam shook his head. Was this a dream? There were some dreamlike qualities to it. The least of which was that he was just given an honest-to-God present from a girl.

"Oh. Wow. I...told you that?" Birthdays weren't exactly a big deal in Sam's life-not even his father ever treated them the way a normal father would. Except that it seemed to come with "leveling up" to a new stage of training. Where Dean was concerned, birthdays meant a new weapon.

"You told me yesterday," she replied. "I remembered it because my birthday is tomorrow too." She smiled. "Sam, you didn't even know it was my birthday and you gave me a present." Amber touched envelope of his letter with tiny fingertips.

Wait, what? Did he really just come right out and say when his birthday was? Sam tried to remember, but everything that happened before ten minutes ago was wrapped up in cotton sunk into the middle of a mountain at the heart of the Bermuda Triangle. Getting to those memories was perilous and exhausting and right now this moment felt like it superseded just about every other moment of his life, except, possibly, his birth. Or that one time he played checkers against Dean and beat him-the one and _only_ time he ever played that game with Dean because Dean _hated_ losing.

Sam covered his look of surprise, and despite his fondest wishes not to, he could help but wonder what Dean would do in this situation with a girl.

"Oh, a heh. Hey. I'm pretty awesome I guess."

Yes, that would be probably what he said. Which meant it was likely to sound completely wrong to a 3rd grader. But Amber continued to radiate a little grin..

Sam squashed that inner voice that attempted to remind him of his situation, of the complete and utter futility of this, of the high likelihood that her heart was going to suffer. _Her _heart. _But she'll suffer _now _if I just...reject her present. She made wrapping paper for it and everything. _

"Well then. I guess, if you really want me to, I'll accept it. But now I feel bad because a letter isn't exactly a present..."

"No, it is." She hastily interjected and even sat up straighter in her chair. "I mean. I think it is."

Man, Amber. She was a one-of-a-kind person. Nice. Observant. Thoughtful. And they even had the same birthday! That was a crazycool coincidence. But Sam was worried about that pale skin and sunken eyes, and she had only taken three bites of her chicken sandwich bun. She definitely needed to eat more. Further encouragement was on his lips when she stopped him.

"Hey, Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you...sleeping okay?"

_What? Oh shit. _And, yes, wasn't he _just_ thinking about how she was observant?

_I can't sleep because the boogeyman is in my closet and might want to kill me._

Wow. It sounded so lame in his head. Not to mention unbelievable and scary to a regular 3rd grader. Just because he was burdened with reality didn't mean he had to curse anyone else with it. And wasn't that Dean's biggest no-no?

"_Whatever you do, you can't tell anyone else about, you know, Dad stuff. They'd just either freak out or think you're crazy and take you from me and Dad. You don't want that, right, Sammy?"_

Luckily Sam had already developed his cover story for lack of sleep earlier that day.

"Oh, um. Well, my brother has had this cold for a couple of nights. We sleep in the same room, so his coughing and sneezing and snoring and stuff keep waking me up. But I think he's getting over it. No big deal." Sam took a manly bite out of his PBJ homicide scene and practiced nonchalance like it was his job. It wasn't the second time he had lied. It wasn't even the hundredth time, and he knew he was fairly proficient at it.

Amber's smile faded. Her face fell.

Sam stopped eating, mostly because his stomach had suddenly crawled into his throat. Every little facial expression she made was like some kind of beacon that had been tugging at him since he sat down. Was this the power of Girls? Even in 3rd grade it was formidable. No wonder Dean was having a hard time resisting them in 8th grade.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

Amber looked down at her chicken patty. She looked at it a little too long. Her mouth opened once as if she was going to say something, and then it closed. Not a good sign.

"Amber?"

"Oh. I was just thinking about how my mom is working all night tonight."

Amber stopped talking and Sam's analytical brain sleepily took over, trying to fill in the piece that would make her frown. "So, she's going to be sleeping all day tomorrow on your birthday?"

She hesitated for a moment and then nodded.

"Oh. Hmm." Sam thought about it. It was his birthday tomorrow too. There was no guarantee he'd see his own father, and he was constantly telling himself he was okay with that, but at least Sam had Dean on his birthday. He always had. He could say a lot of things about his brother, but Dean was always really decent to Sam on his birthday. Amber, on the other hand, was going to be all alone.

What could he do?

There was no way Sam was going to sneak out of the motel room. Saturday morning cartoons were a religious obligation for both brothers, and there was no chance in hell he could escape Dean on his birthday no less. But maybe...

"What if I called you?"

Holy crap. He said the words. He said them and was actually, in his mind, committing to them. For real.

A little bit of the smile came back.

Sam scrambled for that patch of revealing sunlight as he grabbed a pencil from his rucksack. Flattening out the piece of colored wrapping paper and turning it to the uncolored side, he looked up expectantly.

"What's your phone number?"

Holy crap. He just asked a girl for her phone number. _Holy. Crap._

"333-1816."

The pencil felt like a hot brand in his hand, the paper like an anvil, and he was constructing something real. Something permanent. For some reason, his hand shook. He didn't know how he was going to call her and not raise all kinds of hell in the motel room tomorrow, but he was going to do it. This was something important: _Somebody needed him._

When Sam left lunch, he was riding on a sugar high and some unfamiliar sensation of empowerment...which lasted only until 3pm. And then it was if Sam had physically run into the side of a mountain and crashed. Hard.

* * *

**Flash forward**

**March 3, 2007**

**Sam 23-years-old**

**Dean 27-years-old**

Dean sat straight up. Being completely clothed and passed out on top the thin motel covers made it easier for him to get up, get his bearings, and then half fall to Sammy's side and shake him.

"Sam. Sammy!"

Jesus, this kid couldn't just sleep. Still couldn't.

"Dad!"

Shit.

Sam's eyes flew open. He grabbed his brother's arms and looked around wildly, a white-V-neck T-shirt eskew on his broadening frame.

"Dean? Where...where's Dad?"

Dean pushed it all down. _Game face it, Big Brother. Game face._

"Dad's dead, Sam. Not here. Get a grip." And then his voice softened because the look on Sam's face was like he was three feet tall again. "Hey, Sammy. You were dreaming." _Nightmaring?_ He hesitated too long. "Was it...was it one of _those _dreams? Those, um...psychic visions?"

Sam calmed. He began to breathe, but his eyebrows were going to pinch the scalp right off of his head. He licked his lips.

"I...I don't know. I don't know. Maybe. It felt...different. How...how could I see Dad? Dad's in hell. He's...in _hell, _Dean!"

"Okay, okay. Just. Just relax." Dean squeezed his eyes shut for a second. He'd been pouring them out for Dad all night, right down his throat, and maybe that hadn't been such a good idea in retrospect. He felt dizzy.

"What happened? What did you see?" Getting dream signals from hell was impossible, right? And If he was seeing Dad now then it couldn't be a premonition dream. _Don't be paranoid, Dean. Kids can have nightmares about their Dads when they die. It probably happens to everyone._

Sam's expression blanked, reached back, tried to remember. "I don't know. It was weird, like, I saw Dad and...And there was a box."

"A box? Like, a curse box? Or a cardboard box?"

"No...s...silver. The box was silver. It reflected light."

"Okay, a silver box." Dean ran down a mental inventory of everything they had, everything they knew Dad owned. A box like that was nowhere. "Okay, where was he? What was he doing?"

"I...don't know. I couldn't see the room. It felt small. Maybe. It felt like...the box was important though. Like, he was...trying to show me this box."

Sam's tears leaked out onto Dean's arm. It was an impressive flow.

Fuck.

"Sam, it was probably just...just a dream."

"No, wait." Sam snagged Dean's wrist, his eyes scanning the empty air. "I do remember something from the room. It...it smelled like..." He stopped.

"Yeah? It smelled? Like what?"

"Like. Like green."

Dean blinked. "Wait, what? The room was green?"

"No!" Sam said insistently, "It...it _smelled_ like green."

"_Smelled_ like green? How the hell does green smell, Sammy? Like...like grass? Like weed?"

The little brother shook his head, "I don't...no. No it wasn't like grass. I would have said it smelled like grass."

Dean opened his mouth. Shut it. _Gather the calm, Dean, don't spook the little psychic or disturb his wavelengths to the ether. _

"Okay, so...green. It smelled like a color." Dean was incredulous.

Sam shook his head, "I know. I just. I can't describe it. I can't even be sure anymore. I don't know. But, Dean, it really felt like...like Dad was trying to show me something."

That pinged a note of concern for Dean. Dad's last words to Sam were embedded at the end of a fight. Dad's last words to Dean were in his ear...and Sam could never ever know them. Not ever. But Sam's dreams were getting more uncanny, out of control. They seemed linked to Yellow Eyes, and what if Sam figured out their father's whispered message on his own?

"Sam."

Sam grabbed Dean's arms and this time it _hurt._

"Dean, I couldn't do it. You understand, right? You know why."

"Hey, just...Sam." And Dean knew instinctively that Sam was no longer talking about his dream. He was talking about the past.

"He was right _there. _Yellow Eyes was right there...and Dad was hanging onto him, inside...and Dad told me to shoot him. In the _heart_. He told me to shoot. He...he trusted me to do it. I had the gun in my hand, Dean, I had the shot and he told me...but how could he say that to me? How could he just...just expect me to...to kill _him _too? Is it...is it really all my fault?"

Oh no. Oh shit. There was a wild look in Sam's eyes and then it all broke open. No amount of Winchester floodgates were going to hold this back. "To kill him to kill Yellow Eyes with the Colt? Was that what I should've done? Those were...those were practically his last words to me."

Bad. Very bad.

"Sammy, stop! No one could expect you to do that. To kill Dad. Listen to me-"

"Why not?" Sam's voice was hoarse, loud. He stabbed an accusing finger at nowhere. "_He _did. He did, Dean. He expected that I had learned that lesson when I was _nine_. He said that to me in the hospital-you were _there._ He blamed me for it because I was _supposed_ to've learned that damn lesson when I was a kid and I...I clearly _didn't_."

Dean shook Sam hard enough to rattle teeth. He was about to lose his own shit, and that could not happen when Sam was a mess. Had to be a rock. "Listen to me. Shut up and listen to me, Sam. He was just saying that because you were pushing his buttons. He was pushing yours. That's what you did. What you both did all the damn time. He didn't expect you..."

Sam became eerily calm, pooled tears in his eyes.

"Dean, he's dead."

"Sam."

"He's dead because he made a deal. He made a deal with the demon he hated to save you."

"Sam," warning tones were completely useless, but Dean was going to have a melt down. This wasn't...

"_Why_ did he have to make that deal? If I had shot him when he told me to, then we wouldn't have been hit by the truck. He's right. We wouldn't've been in that position..."

"Sammy, you gotta stop!"

"_...But if I had killed Dad, you would've hated me forever_!"

The room became silent. Dean searched Sammy's maddened eyes and something in him crumbled.

"I couldn't hate you, Sammy. Do you understand me?" Hate this kid? This stupid, smart kid who used to repair injured bird wings, read encyclopedias, write stories that he hid or threw away before Dad could find them? Who begged his big brother to read him comic books about the tales of heroic knights and super heroes? Who patiently listened when Dean told him that their Dad was the greatest? Hate that kid? _I carried you out of a burning building. I raised you. You tugged my shirt tails. I was your hero._

"You have to believe me, Sam. I could never hate you." His own voice betrayed the wetness in his eyes.

"You say that, but Dean..." Sam was inconsolable, "but he, he was...he was our only Dad, and the guy...that..._man_...was a shitty father but he was your dad. Our Dad. How could he have wanted me to...to...how could he have wanted to lay that on me too? Wasn't Mom's death enough? How much did he _hate_ me?"

Dean grabbed Sam, then. It was a hug hard enough to break his back-to make him quiet. His arms ached, and his chest was split open and raw. He could feel the sweat drenching Sammy's back, the sobs that wracked the enormous frame that sheltered a spirit still so vulnerable.

"Sammy, you didn't start this...and Dad didn't hate you...I swear," but Dean was lying because he no longer knew. After Dad's last words to him, what he put on Dean's shoulders, it felt like Dad must have hated them both. Or else he was a coward. And Dean didn't know what hurt worse of the two.

John Winchester's presence was almost palpable in the room hanging over the two grown men who clung to each other for dear life.

Sam's voice was tiny in his ear.

"Dean, how do I make it right? So many already. So many I didn't save because...I was afraid...because I couldn't shoot..."

Dean's blood froze.

"You aren't a killer, Sammy."

_Please...please never become a killer...because I can't kill _you_. I can't do it._

_(to be continued...)_


	6. Ch 6: St Anger

Vacation last week. Thanks to everyone who reads and reviews!

-Caladrius

* * *

**Chapter 5: "St. Anger"**

**May 1, 1993**

**Sam: 9-years-old**

**Dean: 14-years-old**

_Sam...Sam...Sam Sam Sam..._

_You have interesting things in here, Sam._

_Who are you?_

_I bet you don't even know what's here. There's so much more. Did you see this? A lady on the ceiling. Fire. There's a door here I want to open._

_What the fuck are you? Groping around in the darkness. I know the darkness. What is that? That voice is cold, hissy. It's not a real voice. Is it a voice? Am I just thinking this?_

_I think I will open it. Someone might be mad..._

_Where are you? What do you look like? Who will be mad? Is this me talking?_

_With you, Sam, it's easier and harder. Easier and harder. Every inch, every breath, every thought, every worry. Easier and harder...and I like that the best._

_Are you in my head? Is this me? I'm cold. Stop thinking. Be quiet. I'm going to be quiet._

_I'm going to just open it once. Once should be enough. You worry about it all the time and you don't even know... _

_The eye. An eye. It's you, isn't it? Leave it alone. Leave everything alone! _

_Smiling voice. Thoughtful voice. What is in here, Sam? I want to watch it..._

_Not me. It's not me. Nothing. No one. Go. Not listening. Go away. Cold here. Freezing. Dying! leave me alone. Alone. Alone! I don't want to be alone!_

_Don't worry. I'll take you with me...Sam._

"Sam? Sammy!"

Sam's head hurt. It was pressed against the back seat of a green bus bench. He had been out; there hadn't been the sound of children in the background, only a dull yellowish buzzing when he woke up. It could only have been a few seconds of oblivion, that's all, but apparently it had been enough to put Dean into some state. Sam could feel that his pulse was up for whatever reason, even though he was just so damn tired. Ignoring it, Sam pulled himself out of the seat and into the aisle at their stop, but if it hadn't been for his older brother's arm, he'd have fallen off the bus steps and been happy to lay on the pavement with a possible concussion. That would have meant real sleep, right?

But Dean's hand on him was solid and steadying, and eventually the bus drove away and it was just the two of them. Sam tried to get his bearings because as much as he wanted to sleep, he wanted to talk about _why_ he was in this position even _less_. He said nothing to Dean's sharp demands for an explanation. He didn't complain when the rucksack switched places from his arm to Dean's. His pride dragged along with his feet.

Walking back to the motel was going to be a challenge.

Oh. Sleep deprivation was psychological torture. It was the real deal. He'd give so much right now for ten minutes of uninterrupted sleep right here, in the light of day, if it could be _safe_. And really...was the agony worth it? If he had just been seeing things, then what was the point of subjecting himself to the torture? None.

...And yet, he felt he was running in some kind of race. If he slowed down, if he stopped, the race would end. He wouldn't lose, it would all just end-no consolation prize. No second chances.

Something smacked the back of his head hard enough to pull him out of the marathon.

"...Are ya listening to me? _Sammy_. You've been totally out of it for two days. What the hell is going on?"

Sam stopped and turned completely around. "I haven't been 'out of it,' Dean. Want me to rate your chances with the cheerleader based on your lame bus conversations? I've been paying attention."

"Yeah? Well if you have, then ya know she thinks I'm adorable."

Sam gave Dean a look. "She tries to talk like those girls from Southern California. Everything 'gags' her. I'm embarrassed for you."

His brother smirked. "Don't be. You haven't seen her in gym shorts."

"Then I'm embarrassed for _her_. She doesn't know you live in a motel..."

_Where the boogeyman is waiting to take me..._

Sam felt dizzy. The horizon tilted. Dean grabbed Sam's shirt, bringing him back to the moment, and immediately Sam thought he might get pounded, public street or not, for the low comeback...but Dean only slapped a hand to Sam's forehead. In his younger brother's confusion Dean was able to hold it there for a few seconds before Sam realized he was primitively taking his temperature and pushed him off.

"Okay, Einstein, back to the motel. You're officially grounded."

"What? Grounded because I'm _not_ sick or because..." _Because I reminded you our lives suck. _Sam stumbled as he put his right foot in front of his left.

"No, because you wobble like you drank a 5th of Jack."

Despite Sam's external frown, he didn't really mind Dean's hand on his arm. He didn't mind listening to Dean talk either. Dean sure liked to talk. Mostly like an idiot these days, or loaded with threats, but even so, the sound of his voice was...reassuring in its own way.

"I'm not drunk," he mumbled.

"I know that."

And the tone of Dean's voice was...worried? The younger brother bristled, but then Dean grabbed Sam's arm when he tripped over a rock. A stupid little _rock_. Okay, that was embarrassing.

"If ya won't tell me, you'll have to tell Dad."

Sam's stomach plummeted and suddenly he was wide awake.

_Oh, God no. Please, not that_.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later Sam was still pleading his case, his pride completely nonexistent. When Dean fit the key in the lock it was clear Dad wasn't back yet, thank God. There was still some time to stall, though it was fantastically hard to move his brother from a course of action once it had been decided.

"I'm telling you, I'm just tired. That's it. That's all."

"Yeah, you keep saying that." Dean stalked Sam through the room after dropping his rucksack on one of the two chairs at the particle-board laminated table that could have also passed as a night stand. "So, why aren't you sleeping? _Explain_ it to me, Sammy."

Sam threw himself onto his cot. "I don't know. Maybe I can't sleep on this thing."

"What, is that all? Then sleep on my bed and I'll take the cot."

Sam swallowed. Despite how jerkish Dean could be, he was quick to trade places, to just shoulder another of Sam's burdens. It confused everything so much more.

"No, I'll keep the cot. Whatever." He stared at the closet. Totally closed. No eyes. "I'll take a nap and be fine." Oh ho ho. He was a good liar to himself, too. As if he'd risk it. Dean would let him nap all evening and never wake him up later, when it got dark, and then the closet would open...

Sam shivered.

"Sleep then," Dean commanded. "Whatever. _If_ you sleep..."

Sam sat up. He turned his legs to the floor and sat there, staring at the closet, his back to his brother. That _fucking stupid thing_. _What the hell are you? Are you really the boogeyman? What do you want from me? What do you _want?

"Does this have something to do with Amber?"

Sam blinked. He turned around and stared at his brother. His tired brain, used to processing these kinds of loaded questions, was running on less than half power. _What?_

Dean gazed back levelly, a car magazine opened to a random page in his lap-some kind of failed attempt to be casual-except Dean's eyes were cross-calculating every line of Sam's face for a confession in reaction...and Sam had just given it to him.

"Is it girl problems, Sam? Is that it? Is that why you pay attention to my 'bus conversation?'"

And Sam missed the note of hope in Dean's question that he had figured it out. It wasn't until later that Sam realized Dean wanted his brother's affliction to be something as mundane as "girl trouble" and not anything worse. But at that moment, all Sam could feel was anger and betrayal.

"What the hell, Dean, are you _spying_ on me?"

Dean tossed the magazine aside. "You're like a freaking _zombie_. You _walk into walls_ at school, Sammy, I already have the lowdown on that. I wouldn't haveta spy if you'd just tell me what's going on yourself."

Sam jumped up, adrenaline pumping the sleep out of him. "_It's none of your business._" Sam was exasperated. "How did you do it? Tell me right now."

Dean threw his hand out. "See? Ya would have seen this a mile out if you could pay attention to a damn thing that's going on around you besides a girl and la la land."

Sam balled a fist. Dean's _authority_ be damned. He had crossed a line, and they both knew it. "Leave her out of it. I asked a question."

Dean sat up. "Fine. That glasses kid on the bus with the straight across bangs," Dean zipped his fingers across his forehead. "He's in your class, brainiac."

Sam processed the description. Andrew Anderson. A really plain name for a mostly unnoticeable kid. He sat two rows behind Sam and to the right. Holy crap. His brother really had been spying on him.

"When did you..."

"Yesterday afternoon. Found him in the bus line getting roughed up while you were bringing up the rear. He has a little problem with some 5th grade dickwad named Robert, so I cut him a deal." Dean laughed mirthlessly to himself. "You really did miss that. You're more out of it than I thought."

"So, what, now, you're a _mercenary?_"

"Oh, hey, that sounds cool when ya say it like that, but no. It was _quid pro quo. _Ya know, 'you do something for me, I do-'"

"I know what it means, Dean." Usually the quiet ones like Andrew were the observant ones. Sam would know. As much as he hated to admit it, Dean had picked an unnervingly reliable source. And since this entire deal with the kid had gone down waiting for the bus yesterday and presumably this very afternoon, Dean had unwittingly made a point that Sam had to concede: The sleep deprivation was affecting him to an almost dangerous degree.

"You sharpened your pencil nine times before lunch," Dean ticked it off on his fingers, "and once after lunch. Were you just more awake? I guess you ate my Payday," his brother had the audacity to smile about it. "Good boy."

Sam gave him a withering look. "That's what your bully services bought you? A record of pencil sharpening and proof I ate your stupid lunch? Great job, Dean. You're a regular James Bond."

Dean stood up, "Bumping into walls, Sam. And giving notes to girls at lunch. Some third grader named Amber? She's a sick kid, misses a lot of school, and has no known friends. So what's the deal? Are you lovebirds? Are you doing the elementary 'talking' thing or what? Is there something wrong with her?"

_Really? Really, Dean? Do you have to push all of my buttons at once?_

Sam wasn't sure what pissed him off more, the knowledge that his brother had been _spying_ on him, or the fact that he might actually know more about Amber than Sam.

"I already said it's none of your business, Dean. And don't try to change the subject. This isn't about her, it's about you-"

"Fine, Sam." Dean cut him off. "You look me straight in the eye, then, and tell me nothing's wrong. Everything is just fine. If you can do that, then I'll say sorry. Maybe. _If_ you can."

It was issued as a challenge-one Sam knew Dean thought was sure he'd win. It was one thing to lie, but to be caught in a lie and still insist the truth of a lie was just...cowardly. And Sam was not a coward, and Dean knew that too. Either way he answered, if Sam said he was okay, he'd be calling himself a coward, and if he owned up to his issues to Dean's face, then Dean had justification for his deception.

Except Dean never realized there was a third option...

Sam took a step forward, looked right up into his brother's eyes and said, "Just because I'm dealing with something doesn't give you the right to spy on me. Sometimes I have to handle my own stuff-sometimes I _want_ to handle my own stuff-by myself, Dean."

Sam turned away to let his brother to process _that_. Dean stood there without a comeback, probably for the first time in his life, while Sam crossed to the table, sat down and opened the top of his bag. Sam knew he was changing well-established but tacit rules of Sam Winchester Acceptance and Behavior, and that was bound to cause friction with Dean who worked really hard to be able to do one thing right: "Take care of Sam." Yeah, well, Dean didn't have the market cornered on the whole "changing" thing; Sam was growing up too.

In the quiet that followed, Sam began mechanically pulling books out of his rucksack. In the front pocket, as he was taking out a pencil, he saw the little red and black hair tie and the piece of colored wrapping paper with Amber's phone number on it. He allowed himself a few seconds to wonder how she was doing, and if he could ever get Dean to leave the motel for five minutes so he could call her tomorrow. Not likely.

As if reading his mind, Dean said, "Is it a girl thing, Sammy? Just tell me that much. I could help with that, ya know."

"I seriously doubt that," Sam murmured.

Dean must have taken that as an invitation to proceed to phase two, the Helping Little Brother phase, conveniently ignoring everything Sam had just said because that was another thing that Dean did expertly. He sat down at the table opposite his brother with a Coke and a bag of Doritos.

"Taking care of a sick little girl. That's like you, Sam. And it's not a bad idea because chicks dig a sensitive guy who gives them attention when no one else does. But, that sort of stuff makes them more likely to, you know, _get attached._"

Dean's voice trailed off leaving the rest of the sentiment unspoken: ..._and we can't get "attached."_

"I know." Sam said, but he was tired and he winced at how close his brother had dropped anchor. Sam could feel Dean's eyes scrutinizing him, and despite the part of his little brother brain that just wanted to think Dean was an idiot, the reality was that he wasn't. He was too damn observant when he wanted to be. "No one is getting attached."

He was only a coward if he was _caught _in the lie and refused to admit it. So far, Dean only suspected. If he went through Sam's stuff and found the ponytail holder and phone number, little brother would be completely sunk. Sam made a mental note to sneakily pull them out and hide them under his mattress, sleep with them under his pillow, or just flat out hang onto them all night. It wasn't like he was going to be sleeping anyway.

"Hmm. Well, that's good." Dean leaned over the table, trying to push his Women Wisdom as far as it would go. "You're in 4th grade, so if you want a little female companionship you gotta look for the girls who wear the bright fresh clothes every day. Ya know. The ones with all of that plastic neon jewelry and boy band shirts. Those are the shallow girls, and they're easy to pick up for a chat and drop later."

"Dean, do you listen to yourself? You sound creepy."

Dean actually laughed at that in a way that seemed almost smug.

"What? It's not creepy, it's just _survival_. I mean, ya can't live without them, but you have to know how ta let them down easy. I'm telling you, stick to the shallow girls. At least ya know you can easily be replaced next week. And they can too, for that matter. It's more humane, Sammy. Isn't that your deal?"

Sam stared a straight line through the thick green canvas to the precious little girl treasure he had received. For the first time in his life it struck him that his brother's philosophy of relationships outside of this family was...actually really sad. _Survival_ he had called it. Well, Sam wasn't willing to sacrifice that all. He didn't want to establish relationships just so they could be wound up, tied up, and carted around like a fishing line forever. He was tired and their father's road seemed endless, hopeless.

"I don't want to talk about it." Sam said quietly, avoiding his brother's eyes. The tabletop blurred in his vision.

"Sammy," Dean's hand took a firm hold of his brother's arm. "Seriously, go take a nap. You're freaking me out."

Sam coughed the emotion out of his posture and managed to wipe his face down with his free hand to casually whisk away the moisture in his eyes. He shrugged off his brother's arm, not too hard, but not like a wimp either. "I will, later," he lied. He sounded sincere. "Right now I want to do this homework."

It worked. Perhaps a little. Sam guessed it was that enigmatic love of academics that Dean couldn't comprehend which shielded the truth and spared him any more of this inquisition. He began to carefully and neatly lay out his black and white marbled composition notebook, history book, pencil, and pencil sharpener, mentally cataloging the task at hand. He hoped his brother would get bored now and go back to reading their father's car magazine or turn on the TV, but Dean appeared to be just getting comfortable. Too comfortable. Sam opened the text book, willing the letters to stop swimming around and stay put so he could read them. Apparently completely oblivious to the tension in the room he had established, Dean proceeded to smirk at the commencement of school work the way Dean smirked at anything that seemed wholly ridiculous to him.

"Something funny?" Sam asked casually, trying to keep his temper under control and the vision of the book from swirling as he opened it up to page...364. The end of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Abraham Lincoln had destroyed his health trying to reunite the North and the South, and he died in a theater after everything was over. Was it beautiful or sad?

"Yeah, homework. The way you actually do it." Dean took a sip of his Coke and set it on the table. He expertly grabbed two sides of the Doritos bag and opened in, dipping in for a fluorescent orange wedge. "Ya know, Dad says it should only take about a couple days here, tops. Yet, you keep rolling out the books like it counts for something. Relax and take that nap, Smart Guy."

Sam felt a pang in his chest. "I can't explain it. You won't get it," Sam said softly, almost regretfully, as he pulled his composition book towards him and opened it up. He hadn't meant it to sound so...pitiful, but he was tired and sometimes it was just so _frustrating_ to try to get anyone in this family to understand him.

"What's there to get? Honestly," the open-mouthed crunching was a bit nauseating, "a bunch of total sheep. School's a system for _them_, Sammy. Ya don't need it. _We _don't need it."

Maybe it was the sleep deprivation. Maybe it was that totally off-handed tone that got under Sam's skin. Maybe it was the fact that, once again, Sam had to go on the defensive. Bad timing, Dean. Bad day. "You want to know why?" Sam slapped his pencil onto the table. It hurt, but it got Dean's attention. "I'll tell you why. When you shoot seven empty beer cans off of a log without missing, Dad let's you reload. That's your equivalent of _Christmas_ Dean. It just means a chance to show off again, and again, if you keep hitting the target, but you grin about that for _days_."

Sam saw that the smile had gone from Dean's face, but he couldn't stop.

"That's what it feels like for me, okay? When I get a stupid letter on a paper. When the letter happens to be an A. That's my I-killed-all-the-bad-guys moment. Don't talk about it like it's nothing, Dean." Sam could feel his heart pounding away in triple time in his chest, and his cheeks were hot. It wasn't worth getting worked up like this. He might as well have slammed his pencil down to declare "blah blah blah" for all the good any explanations would do.

Despite, that, however, there was a silence in the room, between Dean's eyes and his. And it was too heavy.

"It...It's not the same, Sammy." Dean turned in his chair, his growing legs bumping into the center support, "Dad is Dad. It's you, me, and Dad, kid. I'm saying, who gives a shit about anyone else? Seriously, you let it make ya sick. What's the point of that?"

"What's the point?" Sam shook his head slightly, quickly, once again exasperated by the complete blinker vision his brother had to life in general. "One look from Dad in the wrong way and it's like the end of the world. Seriously, Dean. Like the end. Of the World." He punctuated "end" and "world" with a beat of his hand on his history book.

"Shut up, Sam."

Sam ignored the warning tone. It was actually a little too easy to ignore. All the filters in his head that calculated specific responses and consequences was set to the "off" position, and he knew it. Part of him wondered what would actually happen if he pushed, and if it matched all of those models of nuclear fallout he had constructed in his head.

"You said it's not the same, and it's not. It's not the same because your universe revolves around Dad and the Missions and mine doesn't. But you make it. You and Dad both." Sam's hands went to his hair. When he grabbed it, it kind of woke him up a little. Made things clearer. Hurting himself made hurting Dean hurt less. "You _make_ it, and then you tell me to suck it up and deal with it. And I do. I always do. But don't...don't treat me like the stuff that's important to me doesn't matter!"

Sam heard the chair slide back angrily. He thought maybe he would get hit and his eyes squeezed shut in anticipation. But then he heard the sound of the side of Dean's fist pounding the door. When his hands let go of his hair and he could look up, Dean was standing in front of the door, fist still resting against it, and Sam could almost feel the conflict. He wanted to go out. Dean wanted to leave the room, cool off, maybe go break something or get into trouble ...but he didn't. No, he couldn't.

Why? Because Dad told him not to leave Sam by himself. It was the Order of Orders. Babysit the 9-year-old, and he didn't even have to have an "or else," because it was Dad. And Dad would backhand Dean against the wall for disobeying if it was serious enough. He'd do it without a second thought so that next time he'd learn...

The irony of the moment wasn't lost on the younger brother. He had just trapped Dean with the truth. And it was pitiful and terrible. And suddenly all desire to see the outcome of his words went away in the silence of his big brother's hunched back and clenched hand. Who was Sam kidding? They were both trapped here- it wasn't just him. The difference was that Dean had come to love their jailer and Sam wanted to be loved by him. It really wasn't that big of a difference after all.

"_P.S. I get mad a lot, it's true, but I don't mean to make other people sad."_

That's what he had told Amber. He didn't mean to, or maybe he did. Maybe he wanted to push his hurt onto Dean, but he didn't, he couldn't _lose_ him. Not if Dean was still willing to worry about him.

Sam had messed up. Lack of sleep was making it so hard to control his emotions and he felt his eyes tear up. He didn't like looking at Dean's back.

"Hey, Dean..."

Dean didn't move. Sam had to push down the irrational little panic caused because he couldn't see his brother's face. Whatever Dean was thinking, he wasn't saying it. And if he wasn't yelling it, chances were he wasn't going to say it. Ever.

He could fix this. He could fix it. He had to fix this.

"Hey, Dean. 8th grade. What's it like beyond the scary 'do not enter' sign?"

Homework could wait.

It wasn't even a little strange how his priorities suddenly shifted either. Sixty seconds ago Sam had wanted Dean to just leave him alone so he could work. Now nothing mattered but getting over this radio silence. Sam had expected yelling. He had almost wanted it so that he could throw all of his own feelings against it and watch it stick, or watch them slide down. The emptiness from Dean gave him nothing, and it worried him even more. At all costs, he had to bring this back.

"Dean? I…heard you don't get recess in middle school. What do you do when you can't show off your acrobatics on the jungle gym?"

Dean straightened, his fist unclenched slowly. Sam hoped his sigh of relief hadn't been too audible.

There was a pause.

"Are you kidding? Jungle gyms are for babies. There's no recess, but there are plenty of other things to like about it." He turned around and Dean's expression was one of pleased confidentiality. He even looked left and right as he came back to his chair, as if someone in the room would hear him, as if he was about to relate something wonderfully juicy to a trusted conspirator. All vestiges of the pain from a few seconds ago seemed gone. It was fast, but then again, Dean was unpredictable lately.

In spite of his relief, Sam gave his brother an unconvinced smile. "Oh yeah? Like what?"

"Boobs. Boobs, Sam," Dean's hands hefted the weight of imaginary mounds of glorious girl-flesh. His grin was almost criminal.

Sam rolled his eyes and thunked his forehead down on his composition book. "Seriously, Dean?" His voice was muffled by the paper.

"Sammy, you can't even believe it. You can see across to the high school field from our side of the building. P.E. is 3rd period and It's like, bye bye grade school, hellloooooo nurse. All those 'Little Suzy's' are filling out all over the place." Dean drummed out a couple of beats with his hands on the table. "And they don't hide them either. Girls. Man…girls. Legs that go up to their eyebrows. Short shorts. Sammy, wait till ya get there. Man, they will be all over you." Dean smacked Sam in the arm, and his little brother understood that he was supposed to feel very pleased by such an unwarranted compliment.

"Gross, Dean."

"What? Gross? Your little baby face and that thing you do with your eyes when you get pouty? Man, girls eat that shit up."

Sam scowled, but not seriously. Dean was actually more animated and relaxed now than he had been in weeks. The moodiness, the long showers, the clenched fists, the lengthening and repeated silences where there used to be poop jokes or experiments with swearing…yes, _this_ was charted territory again. Everything was right with the world for this moment.

"What about the classes? What do you learn in there? Do you get to do labs in chemistry or dissect stuff?"

Dean made a face. "What, are you kidding? The labs are the only good part. Didja know that salt can be used to make an explosive?"

"Yeah, I knew that. Salt has a long history of uses. But wait, did you get to explode something with salt?" Sam sat up, excited, his eyes becoming round. But then he sat back as Dean shook his head with disappointment.

"Yeah, right. Like they'd let us do anything that might actually be dangerous and cool."

"Well, then…how did you know? You mean you actually let them teach you something?" Sam couldn't exactly hide his sarcasm.

"Hey, man. I learn what I need to learn. If it'll be useful, I'll learn it. But most of the time it's not useful, so what's the point? I'm getting the education I need from Dad and sometimes from shop. Have you seen the wooden stakes I made? You can get a really sharp-ass tip from a grinder." He raised his eyebrows before he flashed a smug grin. " "The bottom line is, I'm learning what I need, not what they want, and I don't care. But so what? If you like school so much, if you want to help a sick girl, if it means that much to you, I'll shut up about it…as best as I can IF…" Dean suddenly leaned forward, his raised finger a couple inches from Sam's face. The "if" created a space of silence that bridged a gap where once the silence had divided them.

"If?"

"If you stop worrying about whatever it is and get some sleep."

Dean's Big Brother voice was getting deeper. It was almost authoritative now.

"If you take a little siesta, get rid of the crazy dark circles, I'll give you your birthday present early. Come on, what do ya say? It's pretty cool…" Dean's voice arched up at the end, the promise of something that was worth this one little favor he was asking.

Dean wasn't telling him to go to bed. He was trying to bribe him, _begging_ him. Dean didn't bribe and he didn't beg as a general rule which meant he was really worried, and Sam had been so caught up in his fear of losing his pride that he hadn't been paying attention to the fact that Dean was compromising his own pride by degrees just to find out what was wrong.

_Ahh, Dean. I'm a shitty little brother sometimes._

Sam liked to think his brother was just a jerk. He liked to think that his brother was one of his captors. He liked to think that the reason Dean laughed off Sam's academic accomplishments was because he was jealous he wasn't as smart as Sam. He liked to think these things because then it justified all of the rage inside of him that he had to keep pushed down so tightly. But every once in awhile, Sam could see Dean as a fellow inmate who had been too young for whatever role he was shoved into, and that he was smart. Really, really smart. And, actually, as big brothers went, Dean was probably the best.

Sam had been so recently targeting him as the enemy for changes that maybe Dean couldn't control. They had never been like that when they were little, and maybe this was all hard for Dean too.

Sam's face fell. He looked at the top of the table. Maybe it had been the conversation, or the sleep deprivation, or the hint of something like a sensitive human being inside his brother's idiocy, or maybe it was Sam's own fear of alienating the last person with whom he had any real ties…

"Dean…If I tell you something, you have to promise not to laugh."

Dean sat back slowly. Thoughtfully.

"I make no such promises. Tell me anyway."

"I think…I think there is something in the closet…and it watches me at night."

What would a normal big brother do at this point? What was the litmus test for such a revelation by a 9-year-old? Sam really thought it should be a hearty bit of laughter and some condescending joke. Instead, Dean stared at him for a second and then looked up at the closet door. And then he nimbly exited his seat and crossed to his own bed, reaching his hand under his pillow to pull out the nickel-plated pearl-handled .45 his father had given him. Like something out of a movie, Sam watched as Dean checked the chamber for a bullet and then covered the closet door as he cautiously approached it.

Sam wasn't sure if his brother was being serious at this point or faking the seriousness just to get a bigger laugh later. He slid out of his seat anyway and followed behind him, heart beginning to pound. The door was closed.

"Dean."

"Sammy, move to the side of the door. When I tell you to, turn the knob and throw it open."

That voice was not a joking voice. It didn't waver. Dean was being completely serious. Sam felt the blood leave his fingers and toes and his face. Something about Dean thinking it was real danger somehow _made _the danger real. But that's not what Sam had wanted, was it? He had really wanted Dean to laugh at him. If he had laughed, then Sam had been imagining things, and he was just stupid and could get over it. Right? If there was something in this closet…

"Dean…"

"Do it, Sam!"

Sam shook slightly as he moved into place. He watched Dean's face as he aimed the loaded weapon. The intensity was terrifying. And then Dean nodded and Sam opened the door.

Silence. Dean's gun arm moved with his eyes like Dad had taught him. _You can't shoot what you aren't looking at, and don't look unless you are ready to shoot. _Dean was ready to shoot.

There was nothing in the closet but the vacuum cleaner circa 1965, and three shirts. None of which looked in the least bit suspicious. Nevertheless, Dean wasn't satisfied until he had pushed the shirts around, inspected the vacuum cleaner, and began pushing on the back of the closet.

"Tell me about it," he commanded as he worked methodically.

Sam stood stupidly next to the closet door. He was so mixed up right now. He wanted help, but he didn't. He didn't want it to be real. He wanted to feel safe, but this was just making him more scared. Sam felt faint. He was tired and he didn't want to fight and he didn't want to think he was being stalked. He wanted to think his Dad was just an angry, crazy, bitter, obsessed man. That it could be all just a circus he'd have to endure until he was able to get out. Maybe he could even convince Dean to go with him…

"Sam! Tell me."

Sam shook his head. "I saw it the first night we were here. There's always a click first; that's the door unlatching. It opens just an inch or two. I thought…I thought I saw eyes. An eye. It was…shiny, like hematite. It didn't blink that I ever saw but…but I felt like I was being watched. So I just…watched it back."

The heel of Dean's palm pressed into the top of his forehead and then slid off as he did the calculation of sleep lost. "Jesus, Sammy, that was days ago. It happens every night?" Sam looked away, embarrassed, but nodded. "Why didn't you tell me?" Dean sounded honestly dumbfounded.

"I checked it in the morning and it looked just like this. What was I supposed to tell you, that the boogeyman was in the closet?" Sam was trying to be indignant. He had felt indignant at some point. Now he just felt like an idiot.

Dean gave his little brother an incredulous look and uncocked his gun. "I don't know a damn thing about a boogeyman, but there are a lotta monsters out there that I don't know enough about yet. It's bad enough that you haven't slept in days." Dean took a deep breath. "Sammy, you know what this means..."

Sam shook his head. Oh, this isn't how it was supposed to go down. Not at all.

"Look, Dean. Please. Can we just…never talk about this again? Please, Dean." Sam's eyes were plaintive. "It's just my imagination. I'll take care of it by myself. Please, Dean, not Dad..."

Dean's shoulders dropped and he uncurled from his defensive half crouch, gun at his side. He opened his mouth to say something, but just then the front door rattled with keys and John Winchester was back with the mother of all the shittiest timings in the world.

_Fuck. Oh just…just fuck._

_(to be continued...)_


	7. Ch 7: How Many More Times

Many many thanks to SPNMum, Krikanalo, My Daydream World, Heartless BytchhakaHelenBach1, and rozz07 for your reviews. I totally and thoroughly appreciate the support!

Thanks a million times to my co-conspirator and all-around SPN cheerleader Agelade for sustaining me in this. And if you guys haven't checked her out yet, she's writing this pretty sweet Season 9 over there. Definitely worth a gander.

-Caladrius

* * *

Summary: John Winchester leaves no choices for his boys, and shit gets real.

* * *

**Chapter 7: "How Many More Times"**

**Then:**

_Dean's shoulders dropped and he uncurled from his defensive half crouch, gun at his side. He opened his mouth to say something, but just then the front door rattled with keys and John Winchester was back with the mother of all the shittiest timings in the world._

_Fuck. Oh just…just fuck._

**Now:**

If the combined acceleration of the two boys' hearts could have been measured on the Richter scale, then half of California would have fallen into the ocean at that point. Dean went ramrod straight and Sam froze. His heart pounded in the back of his throat like a choking, hot, pulsing thing.

John stood at the doorway for a second, and Sam was absolutely certain that he could, like a dog, smell the fear in the room. Calmly he shut the door behind him and pocketed his keys. Their father didn't look like he had slept in a couple of days, but then, he _always _looked like he hadn't slept in a couple of days.

"Son." This was to Dean.

"Yes, sir?"

"Why do you have a gun in your hand?"

He might have been inquiring about the time. Had anyone else been in the room, they would have just considered it the most casual of conversation starters.

Dean hesitated. It wasn't good to hesitate when John Winchester asked you a direct question, and the silence was filled with Sam's mental yells. _Don't tell him. Please don't tell him. For God's sake, just lie, Dean. You lie so well to everyone else. Please don't...please!_

When Dean turned to look at him, Sam thought maybe it was possible that such things as psychic powers existed. Maybe there was something to the bond of brothers after all. With every tiny little ounce of willpower his expression begged him.

"Son?"

The second Dean looked down at the floor Sam knew.

"Sir, I was checking something out."

_Damn you, Dean._

"And that something was the closet?"

"Yes, sir. I thought...there might be something in it. Something supernatural."

_Too little too late._

"You thought this because?"

Dean swallowed, and it really seemed that for a second he tried to fight it. But no, when it came to Dad, that was all there was to it. Can't just, for this _one_ time, deflect it away. He could have said that he was simply cleaning his gun. He could have said...a million things. Dean could get away with anything with anyone else.

When Dean glanced back to him, almost apologetic, Sam made sure that his expression was one hundred ways of saying, "you fucking traitor," and by the resigned look in his brother's eyes, he knew it had been communicated. And that was it then. Dean took a deep breath.

"Sam said something has been watching him for three nights from the closet. He hasn't been sleeping, so I was just checking it out."

At this, John Winchester looked up at the closet, but his thoughts were inscrutable. As usual. He walked across the room, around the beds, and Dean made way for his father as he approached to inspect the opening. Sam didn't back away from the door. He stared up at the imposing wall as if by doing so he could will himself to be brave; this man terrified and confused him and made him...irrationally angry. John looked down at Sam, and Sam held his ground. Stubbornly.

"Is this true, son?"

Sam pursed his lips together. Pleading the 5th. Daring wild horses to drag it from him. But John simply waited, and Sam was losing his nerve. Why did every conversation with his father have to feel like a Mexican standoff? Why had he _made_ it that way?

"Answer the question, Sam."

John's voice had a quiet, compelling quality. A quality that made his youngest son want to throw his fists against his chest and just beat at him and beat at him until he stopped all of this. And it was unfair to hate Dean for giving in to it; their father was _impossible_. At least now. At least while he was nine and couldn't drive or get a job, or find shelter on his own. As long as this dark looming mountain of a man held his brother captive too.

"Yes..."

Too mumbled.

"What was that?"

"I said, yes. Sir." The little soldier. Yes, they were all just being prepped for the front lines of John Winchester's private 'Nam.

John's face became a hard, unreadable line. As soon as he stepped away Sam could breathe again. That was, until his father went to the bedside stand and opened it. He came back with a small 9 millimeter, a weapon that Sam had some marginal familiarity with...and hated. Hated the way it felt, the way it looked, the reality of what it could do. It wasn't as deadly as his brother's .45, but it could kill, and that was enough. John held it towards his youngest son, butt first. Out of the corner of his eye, Sam thought he saw Dean balk.

He couldn't make himself touch it.

"What...what am I supposed to do with that?" Sam asked as flippantly as he could, but he already knew the answer. Moreover, when he looked up at his father, he knew that John knew that Sam knew that he knew the answer. And that was worse.

"You've seen the boogeyman, son. This is not a joke; it's as real as you or me. You've seen it, which means you are a target, and that means unless something changes its mind, or it's dead, it will come after you. They are fast and have mobility and agility on their side, but worse, they know how to look inside you. But keep calm and keep steady because they have a weakness, and they are susceptible to conventional weapons at the right time. You'll know when. Take the gun-you've fired it before. Keep it under the blanket. When you see it tonight you have to face it down first. Aim for the eyes. Don't look away."

Sam shook his head. He shook it and shook it. He felt light and airy and woozy.

"Dad, Sam hasn't slept for three nights..."

"_Stand down, Dean._"

Both brothers jumped, and Sam thought he might pass out right there. John's voice had only raised two decibels but it felt as if the roof was about to collapse and bury him and his brother.

Oh fuck, no.

"Sam, take the gun. This creature is tiring you out, son, and it thinks it has you completely cornered. But you're strong, you've got good instincts, and you'll know when to pull the trigger." John pushed the gun closer.

Fuck you and your _instincts_...hell no. Not like this. There was just no way. Couldn't the unspeakable horrors of the night be his imagination? Couldn't his father have said that everything would be okay? That they would deal with this with some warm milk and bedtime story? That something wasn't going to "come after" him? That he was just afraid of the dark and that was all?

No. Because that was someone else's life. He was a Winchester, and Winchester's hunt because the fucking boogeyman was _real_. _Welcome to the family, Sam. Aren't you happy? Aren't you proud?_

Sam was so _tired _and now he felt sick to his stomach. From his periphery, Dean stood up straight and stepped to Sam's side cautiously, as if their father was a dangerous viper.

"Dad, seriously, I can handle this. I'll shoot the sonofabitch mys-"

"No, Dean. It won't work that way. It can't be you."

"But...but...Dad."

This amount of persistence against their father's commandments was unheard of for Dean. Had Sam not been ready to throw up, he might have been impressed. Once again, his older brother was there to take his burden. Sam struggled inwardly with two voices-one that rejected the idea that he had to be babied through everything, and a second that reminded him that the things his father and brother killed were killers themselves. Sam didn't want to die, and Dean was...Dean was _good_ at this. He'd take care of it, do the dirty work, and then Sam wouldn't have to worry anymore.

But their father made the decision for him.

"Dean, I forbid you to interfere. Sam has to do it. Trust me when I say this-it rests on Sam. Take the gun, son." John's face hadn't changed, but there was an undercurrent to his tone that said his sons were walking the thinnest, finest line imaginable over a deep morass of violence. One step. Just one step...

_If I take that gun, then I'll be a killer too._

"Dad...I can't." Sam's palms were sweaty. He felt sweaty. He feared that morass. He wanted to run...run outside. Go. But where was he going to go? The gun and his father both blocked his exit.

"You can, and now you have to. It'll prey on your fears until you end it or it ends you. It's time, Sam. Take the gun. Follow my instructions. Once it's over, it will be over."

_No, Dad, once it's over, it will have just begun..._

"Sammy, don't worry. I won't..."

But Dean didn't get to finish his sentence. John turned and pushed him. It looked like a little shove, but Dean practically flew six feet onto Sam's cot. The action rolled him over and landed him on the other side like he had been a rag doll. The power of it, the sound of it, the reality of it brought Sam awake and turned his fear and hesitation into a slow-boiling anger.

"I said I forbid it, Dean. Is something wrong with your hearing?" The question was calm. No different from the tone of the first question he had asked that night.

"No...sir..." Dean's voice came from the floor. Defeated. Despite the fact that he couldn't have been too hurt, landing onto the cot, the rage in Sam's chest was beating down doors and preparing to storm the castle of his consciousness. A cold, tranquil fury seized him and he quickly took the gun from his father's hand.

"Keep it under the covers and aim for its eye. I got it." Sam checked it. It was loaded. He fingered the safety. For one almost overwhelming moment, he wondered what would happen if he put the gun to John's chest. There was a whole model of scenarios in his mind for that one, too, and all of them ended in horrific ways. Almost as horrific as desperately wanting his father's approval and never getting it.

* * *

Heavy silence reigned for the two hours before John left again, unless one counted the TV, and even after his father's final instructions, and warnings, the silence continued. The TV continued. Sam felt a wave of industry sweep over him despite the heaviness of his lids. Because going to bed meant going to bed with a gun tonight. It meant staring down an actual boogeyman and putting a bullet into its shiny little eye...

He sat down at the table and slowly, painfully, pulled the history book forward. Behind him he could feel Dean's eyes on his back, but Dean was in a nebulous place with Sam at the moment, again, and Sam had no strength to figure anything out. Better to immerse himself in Reconstructionist South, in the angst of a people who were all completely dead...except the ones who weren't. Not even a 4th grade history text was safe from doubt and suspicion anymore.

Sam gripped his pencil. He stared at a sentence he wasn't reading. His thoughts had two things tumbling end over end: the gun now under _his_ pillow, and the image of Dean hurtling across his cot. And, of course, his father's voice telling him, "it's time."

_It's time..._

* * *

Sam shook his head a little. That was a close call. He had nearly fallen asleep. Nearly. Something must have jolted him. He still smelled like cheap motel soap from a joyless shower he couldn't remember, and _it _was in his hand. The gun. Every cold, hated curve of it burned brands into his fingers. Sam rejected it, he hated it, because of what it stood for. And what did it stand for? The reality of monsters? The death of his mother? Obedience?

Murder. Murder so that he could live, but still murder.

Sam's hand didn't shake. He was tired and the fear was no longer capable of throttling his nerves. It lay there inside, present and accounted for, but useless and fat and almost apathetic. Fear was slowly trying to separate Sam from himself for a simple reason: the real Sam did not want to do this...

_click_

The closet door.

Sam instinctively gripped the butt of the gun. It was close range-almost point blank, if one wanted to do the distance and the math. A five-year-old could make this shot...

And then the eye appeared.

It appeared, but it was...somehow different this time. For one thing, it wasn't shining-it was glowing. Glowing yellow.

"Look who I see there. Is it Sam? Sammy?"

Sam blinked but his own eyes went wide. That voice...he didn't know that voice. But...something remembered that voice.

The yellow eye stared at him and he could almost sense a smile behind it.

"Are you going to shoot me now? Shoot me before you know everything, Sammy?"

_Who are you?_

He hadn't said it out loud, but the words seemed to reverberate in the air anyway.

"Do you want to find out? Come on, Sam. Sammy. Samuel. Take a peek inside here. Don't worry, it's not like that book you read in 3rd grade. We don't all float down here, but it's interesting. It's not quite ready for you, but I'll give you a sneak peek. If you want."

That yellow eye was laughing at him. It was ten times more disturbing now that there was a voice; it was ten times worse because it sounded inviting in the way that leaping out of a plane with a hastily packed parachute was inviting to the reckless. To the directionless. After all, when leaping out of a plane there was really only one direction in which to go. Ever.

Down.

"She's here with me, you know. All cooked. Well-done. Your mother..."

_Bang!_

No more talking. Shutting up now, you fucking yellow freak. Sam shook, his hand shook, the smoking muzzle, the blackened cover shook. Holy shit. Holy fuck. What the hell...

"Sam. Did you miss?"

In the darkness, Sam's eyes went round and the whites around his irises hurt. There was...no way. No way he missed. It was as if the word "mother" had placed a target and drawn the bullet right out of his gun. He had never wanted to shoot anything else so much in his entire life. It was point blank. There was no way...

The eye was gone but the voice was not. The muffled, amused tones were building that cold, dormant rage.

"What do we have behind door number one, Sammy? Does it make you mad? Mad that I remember more than you do..."

Sam flung the covers off. That door was no longer a closet. Was that what he thought it had been? It wasn't a closet at all. His hand trembled and his eyes were fixed on that opening. That tiny opening. Something was behind that door, flickering. Sweat was cold on his skin-he could feel the white t-shirt clinging to him, scratchy against his throat. His throat was so dry. The carpet under his toes was like sandpaper as he took a tentative step, and then another. As if in a dream he remembered his father's voice.

_It's time..._

He held the gun up, steadied it with his other hand, his soul focusing every sense onto that opening, the dancing yellow and golds. Sam held his breath. One hand reluctantly left the ironically comforting presence of the gun to reach for the door handle.

_Hot fingers. Burning skin. Burning to the bone._

Sam couldn't scream. The horror had lodged into his throat, preventing anything, even a gasp, as the door shot open and the hand, flaming, latched onto his wrist. It was unbelievable in every way except that it _hurt_. If nothing else, that pain, that searing, skin-crisping pain, and the feeling of being inexorably pulled towards the door made Sam abandon any hope. He brought up the gun. He shot at the arm. The kickback was the kickback of a 9 millimeter, not so much, but he felt it in the muscles of his hand, the tendons in his arm. He shot it empty. Sam's heels burned with the friction as he slid closer.

_Oh shit. I'm going to die!_

The useless weapon fell to the floor and was gone. Sam pulled at his own arm, his eyes fixed on that burning yellow and orange orb that didn't care. Didn't care that he he didn't want to know what was behind that door. Didn't care that he didn't want to die.

Dean.

Sam's foot hit the door jam. He braced it that for all he was worth.

_Dean!_

A wind rushing from the opening, as small as it was, was like the gate over a furnace from hell. He didn't want to go there. He didn't want to know!

And then the fire became an icy trail from his forehead down his spine. Cold_._

_This is you, Sam. It's all here. Thank you for showing me..._

"Dean!"

He screamed it at the top of his lungs...but nothing came out.

The ice was shiny. Like an eye. He was encased in it.

_I've got you, Sam. You will come to me. So many fears, but this one is the most beautiful... _

"Sam!"

Sam gasped. His head shot up from the page of his history book. Every muscle in his body ached. What the hell. Where the fuck?

"Hey, Sammy? Sam!"

Sam felt his entire upper body move, being shaken from behind, no, the shoulder. For seconds he was frozen solid. So cold. He was actively rejecting reality.

_He would crawl away from reality and sit here where he could do nothing and nothing could hurt him and nothing would happen to him. He could hide for as long as he wanted because he could not be found and could not be seen..._

"Oh shit. Sammy!"

His chair moved, and a flower of a sting on his left cheek, the jerking reaction, somehow connected to his chest and his lungs started to work again. Another breath. And another.

"That's good. Okay, fuck. Jesus. Breathe, Sammy."

Dean began to swear a kind of blue streak then. It wasn't artful, but it satisfied some need. Yes, a river of superfluous vitriol accompanied by a hand on his forehead. Sam looked straight ahead, and then his eyes focused on his brother. His head hurt. His brain hurt. Why did it feel like his _soul_ hurt?

"Did you just slap me?" Sam asked it as if he had done nothing to precipitate it. Had he?

_Something just happened. There was a voice. And fire and cold._

Dean opened his mouth, stuck like that for a second, and then that rare expression of total vulnerability on his face disappeared.

"Yeah, you little bitch. D'you want me to do it again?"

Sam blinked. Dean blinked. He shook his head slightly and sat back. What had that voice said? _You'll...come to me?_

What voice?

"Just admit it. History is a fucking snorefest. You can't even defend it now. Did you get any drool on that book?" Dean was talking again and being an ass, but Sam was shaken in ways he couldn't quite recall and Dean's voice was familiar. It filled the empty spaces for the moment, redirected the panic. Everything was right where it was. Without even really realizing what he was doing, Sam lifted his arm. He gazed at it. But it was his arm, nothing more. He touched his forehead but it was hot, not cold.

"Hey, man..." Dean was staring at him, he had his mouth open to say more and then stopped. "Are you hungry? Because I'm starving."

Sam pursed his lips and took a breath.

"Yeah, actually."

But the bang of a pot and clink of silverware had already begun. Sam picked up his pencil, trying to make his brain realign into something that wanted to finish this homework.

"Hey."

"Hn."

"Did you have a nightmare?"

Dean's tone was conversational, but it had an edge.

"Um. I don't...remember. Why? Did I say something?"

There was a pause. It might have been too long, or it might have been Dean just trying to read directions on a box of mac and cheese. Reconstruction. Carpetbaggers. Amendments to the Constitution.

"No, not really."

_Man, I fell asleep on my history book. Lame, Sam. Way to be lame. I'll never live this down..._

But Dean said nothing else, and Sam was finished with the answer to question four by the time a bowl was filled with steaming orange pasta. Sam's eyes creased at it, the completely unnatural color, the steam, like glowing orange and smoke...

But it was only mac and cheese.

"Congratulations, this doesn't suck." He said finally after the third mouthful.

"Too bad you do."

"That was an idiot's comeback, Dean."

"I know you are but what am I?"

"An idiot."

"Only idiots use the same insult twice in a row, idiot."

"Well then, look who's talking."

"Eat your pasta, bitch."

"Jerk."

"I know you are, but what I am I?"

Dean liked to talk, yeah. But it filled the empty spaces, and everything was where it should be. At least for the moment.

* * *

**March 18, 2007**

**Sam 23-years-old**

**Dean 27-years-old**

"_Dean, I want you take care of your little brother, okay? Watch him. Protect him. But, son, if you can't save him, if he becomes one of them, then...it has to be you. When the time comes, you'll know it's too late, and then the only way to save him is to kill Sam. Remember that, son. Remember it."_

_Dad, don't go! I can't do this!_

"_Dean, I've tried running before. I mean, I ran all the way to California and look what happened. You can't run from this, and you can't protect me..."_

_Sammy...you used to have faith in me..._

Dean came out of his sleep full tilt. He turned his head quickly, and when he didn't see Sam in the other bed he was up and grabbing his nickel-plated .45 from under his pillow, pulling his jacket from the bed post, before Sam's voice stopped him.

"Dean?"

Sam was at the motel table, computer open, newspapers in front of him, a concerned and worn Sammy expression tilting his features.

_Oh, thank God. _

Still here. Still here despite...despite learning the horrible truth about Dad's last words after that Croatoan freakiness. Despite once running away to Indiana to follow his "Alice in Wonderhell" breadcrumb trail of other Yellow-touched "special" kids. Despite the disappearance, under questionable circumstances, of the nice little psychic girl who saved his brother's life when Gordon and his fucking anti-hero crusade crossed his path.

And it was the complete middle of the night.

Dean cleared his throat.

"Did you...did you have a nightmare?" Sam asked gently.

"Hm? No, I was just...gonna take a leak." Dean coughed.

"With your _gun?"_

"Hey man, have you seen the cockroaches in Illinois motels? They are hella huge. Those things could survive a nuclear war but not this baby." Dean shook the gun in the air a little with a grin and then slid it back under his pillow.

"...Rrright."

Dean stood up. Stretched. Whatever time it was, he was up now. "What are you doing? Did _you_ have a nightmare?"

Sam took a deep breath, ran a hand over half his face, and then shook his head. His eyes travelled back to the computer monitor. "No. Tried to sleep and then gave it up."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Too hesitant.

"What are you thinking, Sammy?" Dean crossed to the table.

Sam covered something small on the table with his palm, but not before Dean saw it. Saw it clearly.

He remembered another night Sam had clutched that thing, stunned, his heart destroyed. He remembered closing Sam's numb hand over it. _Why, Sammy. Of all things, why keep that thing? After what she did to you..._

His brother was a masochist. That's all there was to it. At least, he hoped that was all there was to it. "Sam..."

One look and Dean knew Sam knew he had seen it.

"It's happening again, Dean."

"Sam, we don't know exactly what happened to Ava, okay? Don't...don't go all Donnie Darko on me now."

Sam gave him a weird look, "Dean, this...isn't really anything like Donnie Darko."

Dean shrugged, "The hell if I know. That fucking rabbit costume actually did give me nightmares, and I had _no _idea what was going on at any point in that movie..."

Sam raised his eyebrows and shrugged. "Nevermind. More appropriate reference than I thought."

"Shut it." Dean looked over Sam's shoulder at the 20 tabs Sam was running simultaneously. Moving his eyes only, he visually checked Sam's hand. It was still hanging onto that red and black hair tie.

"Please, don't ask me why," Sam said in answer to the look he couldn't have possibly seen from his vantage...

Dean froze. How did he know he was...? Fuck, Sam _was _psychic but...

Sam pointed at Dean's clear reflection in the monitor.

Oh. Duh.

"I don't just _know _everything, Dean. If I did, I wouldn't be up at 4am searching the grid."

His older brother relaxed slightly, put his hand on his shoulder and squeezed it.

"Sam...it's all doing a 'Chariots of Fire' race around your head. You've got too much goin' on. Can't you at least let...let something go? You know. Let _this thing_ be?"

Sam shook his head. "Everything I do goes back to it. It _all_ goes back to it. The hesitation, the mistakes...whatever is coming, whatever...Dad...was thinking, he knew it too. Dean!" Sam twisted suddenly in his seat as Dean's hand fell away and his brother pivoted on his heel in frustration.

"Sam, your 'hesitation' _saved_ people, okay? Saved that guy at Cedar Lake. Hell, you saved him from _me_. He wasn't infected, remember?" Dean turned back to him, "And...and you didn't gank Gordan when you had the chance, even though you knew he was tryin' to kill you in cold blood."

Sam shook his head, "He was trying to stop me from something, Dean. Gordan was a homicidal sociopath, but who knows where I am headed? You can't rule on that one yet."

Dean threw his hands into the air. "Look, you have to stop equating the ability to _kill_ things with killing the boogeyman...or you are goin' to turn into what you're trying _not _to become, and hell if I know what Dad was doin' back then."

"He was trying to make me smarter. Ready. I don't know..."

"Oh, you say that now like it all magically makes sense. Did you have another green-smelling dream?"

"Dean," Sam clenched the hair tie and his face crumbled, but only for a second. For an instant. "What Dad said to you. He based it on the me he knew. The things he knew. And if I just wander down the path he saw, then you'll have do it. You will pull the trigger like he told you to. That's what he trained _you_ to do. You'll do it."

Dean's eyes narrowed dangerously, because, God, to imagine he had been trained to kill his only little brother after being told so many times to protect him, that such a thing could have been Dad's plan _all along_... Dean couldn't even _touch _that let alone _accept _it as apparently Sam had.

"No, Sam, stop..."

"You _will_..." And then quieter, "I'd want you to...if I became that person. If I couldn't...If I couldn't break this...this goddamn _chain_ from then. If I could just face that fear I couldn't face before. If I could be stronger, calmer...prepared." He looked up at Dean meaningfully. Pleadingly. "It doesn't mean I'm going to become a killer if I can find it, retrace my steps, confront it. _Deal_ with it the way I should have back then, the way I _knew_ I should have. Don't you see, Dean? The fear I had when I was nine...it's not gone. Dad wanted me to face it, to get over it. I should have. He'd never have needed to say that thing to you if I had. He'd never have burdened you with it."

"Sam, Dad was a coward."

Sam shook his head. "You don't believe that."

"Maybe I do now. Maybe I do. The point is that going all the way back there, to the past...I mean, what is it, Sam? What the hell are you still so afraid of?"

Sam and Dean's eyes met.

The pain in the room was so close to the surface. Silence crashed through the tiny barrier and Dean realized that, after all this time, after bringing this kid up and changing his diapers and watching him obsessively almost every day of his life until he was 19...he just didn't know his brother well enough. And that was damn scary.

"Dean, believe me or not if you want, but...something is leading me back to it. My dreams, little things, all of it. I told you I wasn't going to hide it and I'm not. When I know what I need to do, I'm going to do it. I have to move past it. I have to move us _all_ past it, you included."

"I don't need my little brother to-"

"Dean. I have never felt more certain about anything in my entire life. The whole thing with Yellow Eyes, with Dad, with the other psychics...I've got nothing. It's all grey and fuzzy and ominous. But this one thing...this _one_ fucking monster that's still out there...that thing is mine, Dean. You didn't do anything wrong when you were 14. Nothing. You have to let me accept this, all of it."

Dean slumped onto his bed. So fucking stubborn. Just like Dad...

_Sammy..._

"Did you have another dream about Dad?" It was quiet.

Sam took a breath. "The same one. But clearer. A little."

"Still smells like green?"

"Y-yeah, and the silver box is in Dad's hand, but now they are surrounded by a hundred or more other silver boxes. And...and he looks right at me...looks me right in the eye..." Sam pauses, "...and he says, 'it's coming back.'"

A chill ran down Dean's spine.

"That's it?"

Sam nods.

"And...and when were you going to tell me this, Mr. I'm Not Hiding Anything?"

His little brother shrugged, "When you were happily listening to Led Zeppelin?" His eyes looked up at Dean hopefully, apologetically...haunted.

"Zeppelin? Really," Dean answered blandly.

"Maybe Mettalica, but not during the Black album."

Dean nodded, "You better not fucking interrupt the Black album with your petty psychic dreaming crap."

Sam smiled and a line in his forehead relaxed. "Absolutely not. Some things are sacred."

"You bet your ass they are." Dean stood up, stretched, and took a deep breath.

"Well, this has been fun and adorable and far too revealing, and now I'm going to get black coffee to cleanse myself. You want your caramel mocha chocowhipped espresso yummycup usual?" Dean picked up his coat and gun again. He clinked the keys in his pocket.

"Yeah, actually. Double on the chocowhipping, please. Running on a sugar low."

_God. What a girl._

"You got it, Samantha."

Sam snorted and gave Dean the finger...which meant they were all good.

Dean couldn't help squeezing Sam's shoulder one last time before heading out the door and locking it behind him. He didn't think overly much about his last view of Sam through the motel window, his hand open, the hair tie staring him full in the face, and Sam's bowed head. He pushed the image away because, what the hell, Sammy. _Putting yourself on an island is going to kill you. Kill us both. And I'm the one always afraid of it, of losing you. _I'm _the coward, not Dad. Not you._

_(to be continued...)_


	8. Ch 8: For Whom the Bell Tolls

Sorry for the late update! I got caught up in some stuff and now school is coming back oh noooooooooooo! Thankfully, I have mound of Boogeyman text on deck for editing.

A million thanks and praises to Agelade, of course, because she in all ways rocks. Her enthusiasm for this story is a huge reason why it will keep going forward to the end. And yes, she's been bugging me so I better get on track because Agelade is "She who must be obeyed." And read. Three full episodes of her season 9 AU, "Lustra," are completed, so if you haven't checked that out you should because she's a hell of a lot better writer than I am.

Because we tend to cross-inspire each other, you may find some details from this story translate over to "Lustra" and vice versa. Sometimes it's intentional. Sometimes we just do it and are like, "oh man, I didn't even mean to do that, but it's perfect," so if you are reading both then know we have you protectively snuggled in our own shared "Lustra Verse" where a strong Sam and Dean bro bond is Super Important.

Many thanks especially to enthusiastic reviewers especially SPNMum and Clowns or Midgets. Seriously. I don't know how you found my fic, but I'm glad you did. It is SO worth it to know that people like this. Thanks also to Sarah, baileylovesyou0400, sylvia37, krikanalo for reviewing the last chapter. Without ALL of you guys it would be terribly lonely. Every time I get a review notification it's like Christmas. Seriously. Thanks!

For the record, this is my favorite chapter yet...

-Caladrius

* * *

**Ch 8: "For Whom the Bell Tolls"**

**May 1, 1993**

**Sam 9**

**Dean 14**

At nine o'clock that night, Sam learned an important lesson about human psychology: it's easier and nicer to exist in a world of denial. It's not actually comforting to live in denial, but it provides the _illusion_ of comfort and sometimes it's much preferable to reality. Denial for Sam consisted of every possible way to resist the inevitable passage of time that would take him from a moment in the shower through to the moment when he would have to pull the trigger on a monster. (Surprisingly, Dean didn't give him any crap for completely hogging the shower, though he did check on him twice to make sure he wasn't "drowning in snores.")

The water on Sam's chest was hot and the sound was comforting. It was a universe of "this can all wait, right? Sure it can." But eventually hot water runs out and time marches on. Nevertheless, and much to his embarrassment, his older brother had to bodily pull him out of it and dump two towels over him, frowning at his chattering teeth.

"Really, Sam? Are you a retard? That water has been cold for five minutes. Do you want to die of hypothermia?"

Of course Dean knew about hypothermia. Dean existed in reality. Sam didn't like to admit any shortcomings between them despite their age, but it was true that he had been the one protected, sitting in motel rooms moping while Dean was out experiencing hypothermia in the real world. Or maybe he could summon up some hot anger about all of that to stop his annoying jaw.

_Encased in ice..._

"Y-y...yeah. Maybe I do want to die of hypothermia," he said petulantly.

The anger didn't come, but the heat from Dean's hand across his face did warm him up a little. It wasn't a hard slap, and the expression his brother wore as Sam looked up to retort flooded him with guilt.

"Jesus, Sammy. Don't say melodramatic shit like that. You're nine."

As if age had something to do with dying, with denial, with reality.

The reality was that his father had sentenced him to be the death of a boogeyman. It was complete fiction in someone else's world. Only for the Winchesters could it possibly be real. His father had said that he was a target, that it would keep stalking him until he shot it. But stalking him to what end? What did it actually _want_?

"Stop hitting me, Dean. And, for the record, I'm almost 10." It was a delayed reaction to the slap which, honestly, he had probably needed. Sam wrestled himself out of his terror and provided a fair facsimile of nonchalance as he pushed his brother off of trying to dry his hair for him and took control of his personal hygiene.

Dean put his hands in the air as if being robbed at gunpoint. "Stop making me, and I will." And despite how that sounded completely wrong, abusive even, Dean had no apologies and Sam expected none. They were their father's sons, after all; the ends justified the means. Dean left with a stern big-brother admonition to "be out in five, or else," and exited. Sam took all of the four minutes and fifty-nine seconds to breathe in the vaguely clean scent of the stark white towels before he obediently left the bathroom. Dean's authority notwithstanding, there was no more sense in delaying the inevitable.

* * *

"I don't need you to tuck me in."

Dean lifted the 9 millimeter to his eyes. He checked it. He checked it thoroughly.

"It's a good gun, Sammy. It's not going to jam on you."

Sam was quiet as he pulled up the cover. He stared at his brother. Forbidden to interfere. Forbidden by John "Almighty" Winchester, hunter god extraordinaire.

When Dean's eye met his, he actually saw the wall crumble. That was the scariest part.

"Sammy, you're gonna be okay. Dad wouldn't have said for you to do it unless he thought, no he _knew_, you could, all right? Look," he aimed at the closet door. "It's the closest shot in the universe. I've seen you practice; you're good."

Sam calmly reached up. He tugged on Dean's shirt tail and let his hand hang there. The weight was small, but he hoped it conveyed...something. His brother wasn't a complete douchebag. He forgave him for spilling the beans to Dad before because he was so clearly paying for it now; at the moment, it was hard to decide which of them was more terrified.

"I got this, Dean. Give me the gun."

Dean stared at his brother's hand. "I'm just sayin'..."

"I know what you're saying. Just give me the gun. If I kill this thing maybe Dad will take us out for cheeseburgers tomorrow or something." Because he knew that was Dean's comfort food, not his own. And Dean knew he knew. It was an olive branch. A truce. _We're in this shitty reality together._

Fourteen-year-olds going through puberty develop an Adam's Apple. That's what Sam saw move. Up, then down. Swallowing. Dean took Sam's hand from his shirttail and slapped the gun into it with purpose. He bent down so he could meet his little brother's gaze on his level. Inadvertently, Sam could see how shiny his eyes were.

"You fire when you're ready. You take the shot. Don't wait another night, Sammy."

_Because you won't make it another night._

It was like Sam actually heard the words from Dean's head. Something really deep was shaken by the worry in his brother's voice. When Sam started to trace it to its source, he realized why: It was Dean, not his father, who had always been the most reliable caretaker, even when he hadn't actually _been _reliable. To sense danger from a place of safety was worse than any dire scenario his father could have painted for him. Unconsciously his left hand tightened around a small piece of plastic in his hand. The red and black ladybug hair tie he had surreptitiously snagged from his rucksack was hot but real. Just in case. Just, maybe, for luck so that he could survive this.

_Keep your mouth shut, Sam_, he told himself. He said nothing more. If he kept talking, Dean was going to keep talking. Not that Dean needed to hear a word from Sam's mouth to keep talking. The fact was, there was nothing else to say. Sam nodded. An earnest nod. An "I'm actually paying attention to you" nod. For what seemed like an eternity, there was a silence as deep, vast, and dark as a quarry pool. Ambient light from a venetian blind somewhere created ripples on his brother's face as he slowly stood up, disappeared from Sam's view, and created hollow sushing sounds as he slid into his own bed.

And that was it then. The trap was primed.

Who was Sam kidding? He wasn't the trap, he was the bait. This wasn't his first mission, it was his last. Disappointing, really. He had hoped that reassuring his brother would have at least provided himself with a few minutes of confidence. Yes, he wanted to be able to show he was self-sufficient, that he was worthy of someone's faith...but not like this. He didn't want to kill, and he didn't want to die. What a sorry excuse for a kid _he_ was.

And of course there was the niggling fact that a boogeyman had targeted him and wasn't going to stop...

There was an imprint of edges from the little hair tie in one hand. He was holding onto it so hard that it hurt. Was Amber laying in bed thinking about her father who had gone on a hunting trip and never come back? Who had missed several birthdays and would probably miss the rest?

_And where is _my _Dad? _

_Oh, that's right, he's left me here with a monster..._

Sam's fingers on the gun were slick, sweaty, which only increased his anxiety. When the time came, could he even get a shot off? At best he'd only have one chance-at this distance, he was just as easy prey as the creature. Nine million scenarios assaulted Sam's imagination with all of the force of a ten-story drop. In most of them he was killed in some wonderfully horrible way, and in others he succeeded and earned the right to be a monster killer. Of course, several scenarios just had him failing in different ways and having to face his father in the morning for it.

"Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you still awake?"

_Dean._

"Duh."

A pause.

"...Do you see it yet?"

Sam licked his lips. "No. Door's still closed."

"Ah. Okay. How're you doin'?"

"Fantastic."

There was no response. Sam shifted slightly, trying to uncramp his shoulder which was rapidly going numb. It appeared to be caused by the almost deathlike grip on the 9 millimeter he didn't even know he had been applying. A strange sort of cold desperation sank in. He was tired, so, so tired. And now he was completely psyching himself out.

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"...When you have a...job to do, when Dad takes you out, what do you think about? You know, to keep your mind off it?"

"Honestly?"

"Yeah."

Dean's voice floated up from the darkness. "I don't think about anything. I don't think about it. Not even later if I can help it."

Sam blinked. Actually, that made a lot of sense. And not just as advice, but it explained more about how his brother operated in two sentences than Sam had managed to figure out in nine and a half years. Single-minded determination. One track mind? Yes. That was because Dean set himself on a path and let the autopilot take over. How many steps to the next obstacle? How hard was the brick wall? Walk it out, bash yourself through it, and then never look back.

Well, shit. As enlightening and almost endearing as it all was, there remained one glaring problem.

"I...don't think I can do that." He admitted quietly. "Not ever."

Silence.

Sam expected some kind of retort from his brother, something Dean would have found witty but would be, in all actuality, pathetic. But there was nothing. He winced. Dean was right, he wasn't going to make it another night...

"Fuck this."

Sam turned his head slightly, hearing sounds of movement behind him but too stiff to turn his head enough to see. But he didn't have to. The clicking of metal on metal, the creak of a motel bed unloading, and Dean's presence in front of him all came together.

"Scoot over."

Sam lay in the bed and blinked at him.

"What?"

"I said, scoot over." He leaned down and physically pushed at his little brother in the chest. "And do me a favor and don't shoot me. In fact, give me that thing." Sam felt his brother's hand on the gun and his fingers resisted.

"Dean, what the hell are you doing? Go back to bed."

"Gimme the gun, Sammy. I don't _think_ you'd accidentally shoot me in the back. Well, maybe I do. _Jesus_." The reason for the last exclamation was mostly inexplicable, except that it was breathed out right about the moment that Dean managed to pry Sam's sweaty, clamped fingers from the weapon. Sam instinctively clutched his hands to his chest to soothe them, and then was handily moved out of the way. Christ. When did Dean get so strong? In thirty seconds more his brother had climbed onto the cot and lay facing the closet door with his .45.

"Dean, seriously, there's not enough room for both of us on this thing."

Did he sound relieved? He prayed he didn't sound relieved. He wanted to be angry, indignant, that his brother was, once again, taking his burden onto himself. He _was_ indignant. Mostly.

"What're you talkin' about? You're a shrimp. There's nine feet of unused space here. Just close your eyes and sleep, Sammy."

Dean turned his head slightly over his shoulder when he addressed him. His profile was so clear despite the darkness.

"Are you kidding? You're gonna smother me if you shift three inches..."

"Shut your cake hole, Sammy. Who d'you think slept with you when you were 11 months old in every motel room, huh? And look, you're still breathing. As far as I'm concerned, you kept me up enough to owe me a little credit."

Oh. Right. That's right. Once upon a time, they had shared a bed. Until the day a four-year-old Sam insisted he was old enough to sleep by himself. But that had been different.

"Dean."

Sam's voice was serious.

His brother looked away. "Just sleep, Sammy."

A pause.

"Dean, he _forbid_ it. Remember? Dad doesn't use words like 'forbid.' He just says 'don't' and we 'don't.'"

_You don't._

There was no movement, just a loaded stone wall between him and the closet door, between himself and nine million scenarios that all sucked.

"Dean, seriously. Dad will kill you."

Sam meant it figuratively, but John Winchester had a way of making his lessons so crystal clear a monkey could understand them. Which was why Sam's fear had begun to shift directions. He'd already seen his brother tumble over his cot once because of his problems. It wasn't something he wanted to see escalate. Ever. Despite it all, Dean's voice was steady.

"I know what he said. I know."

"Then what the hell are you doing?" Sam pressed it and Dean moved slightly, as if testing the bonds of an invisible rope wrapped around his arms.

"I want the target practice."

Man, that was lame.

"Dean..."

"Shut up, Sammy, and listen to me." His voice was clipped, hushed, as if John Winchester would be arriving any moment and he had only seconds to make himself clear. "I pushed you out of the way. You can think whatever you want. Hell, you can tell Dad whatever you want. The fact is, I decided this, and I'm gonna take that thing out that has been stalking my little brother for nights. For _nights._ And I'm gonna make its ass sorry it ever decided to pick on a Winchester. And that's it, Sam. That's the end of the story." His face turned towards the closet. His shoulders were set, resolute.

Sam blinked.

He shut up.

What could he do? When your brother says the coolest thing ever, what are you supposed to say to follow it? This _was_ his brother, right? Dean? Saying "piss off" to Dad's _forbiddance_? Was he insane? Did he actually have a death wish? There was no way he was in this for the target practice, no matter what he said, because the truth was that Dean was 14-years-old and already didn't _need_ target practice. In Sam's sleep-soaked brain, his brother's decision to stand against their father trumped it all. It trumped everything. More than standing up to a boogeyman, it was the bravest thing either of them could ever do. It was probably irrational, familial pride, yes, but Sam was mentally, physically, and emotionally worn out.

Sam slid forward and his forehead pressed against Dean's back. It was warm, but not too warm. It was comfortable. Far too comfortable, in fact, but it was beyond Sam's ability to fight.

Tomorrow. He'd reassert his manliness tomorrow. If he was alive, this would be his problem again. Tomorrow. When his eyes had rested. When he could actually think. Maybe when he could consider holding a gun on a closet door and not imagine nine million ways it could all go wrong. And as if he had been programmed for it, as soon as he decided to give over his burden (just for one night, seriously), his body felt leaden. Swirls of violet color bloomed behind his eyelids and sleep began to drag him down. But it would be okay. As long as Dean was here, he could close his eyes, allow his vigilance to relax. So cool, sometimes. Standing up to Dad. Dean could be so cool...

"Sammy?"

"Nnn."

Dean's voice relaxed. Maybe he could hear the sleep in Sam's voice. Or maybe he knew that there would be no more coherent conversation.

"I've got a sweet birthday present for you. Just wake up tomorrow, okay?"

Against his back, Sam smiled and nodded. He pressed closer and his hand unconsciously found the shirttail. Dean's T-shirted back was warm and it was banishing the cold, keeping the ice at bay, giving Sam strength and sapping his will to stay awake at the same time. It was too late to stop now anyway. It was okay, though. It was fine. Dean was okay. He'd keep that boogeyman at bay, no matter what. He'd follow through because that's what he did. He even had a present for him. He even remembered. That was nice, to be remembered. Sometimes Sam really loved this guy. For real.

"Go to sleep. You're delirious."

His last thought before the darkness wholly consumed him was, _did I say something out loud?_

* * *

**May 2, 1993 **

There were no dreams. At least, not that he remembered. It was the deepest, hardest sleep imaginable, but it was also the most restful sleep he had had in a long time. And this was all despite the fact that when he finally opened his eyes, there was an arm partially laying across his face and some terrible breath snoring at point blank range towards his nose.

"Ugh..." He recoiled from the hot breath instinctively, found an arm, and pushed at his brother's chest. "Holy crap, Dean, you're gonna kill me." Sam pulled at the right arm slouched over him, gun still attached to his grip. Wow. Okay, _this_ wasn't safe. His brother's taller body was on the verge of total eclipse of his own, and he was completely and utterly sound asleep despite the sunlight streaming into the room from the window slats.

"Dean." He shook his shoulder. "I told you you were gonna smother me."

"Ung?" Dean woke up. Very ungraciously. He snorted and blinked as he got his bearings, finally focussing on the vaguely annoyed expression on his brother's face. "What are you talkin' about. You're fine." His brother partially lifted himself to pull his arms and legs back to a more compact position. Dean had fantastic bed hair. Really fantastic. One side of it slid straight up like a cliff over the ocean of his ear. His eyes were tired, but he grinned. Completion of a job well done or just an idiot? Maybe a little of both. "What did I tell you, huh? No problem."

Well, there was no way Dean could have shot something with a 45 in the middle of the night and Sam not hear it, so...

"Did you see it?" He asked hesitantly.

His brother shook his head in response. "I watched all night. No click. No door open. No shiny eye." He lifted himself up for a second so that Sam could verify that the closet door was, in fact, still closed. That worried Sam because something felt...off about it.

Dean let himself fall back onto the cot. It jostled a bit under their combined weight. "When the sun came up I figured the show was over."

He fell asleep at dawn then? Maybe two and a half hours ago? Three?

"How'd you sleep, Sammy?" Dean had a look of perpetual self-satisfaction on his face.

Best not to stroke that ego too hard. He shrugged slightly. "Good. I was completely unconscious, I know that much. But, Dean...do you think it's over? Won't it come back? Dad said it had me targeted."

"Jesus, Sammy. You can't just be okay with it for two minutes?" Dean frowned.

Sam sighed. "No, I mean, I'm glad. I am, okay? Happy? Thanks. I'm just thinking ahead..."

"Yeah, well, we'll cross the bridge when we come to it. That's what we always do anyway. Christ, you're gonna have an ulcer before you have pubes."

Sam gave him a wilted look. The Look. "Seriously, Dean?" But his brother was laughing, and it was kind of hard to be gloom and doom when Dean was smiling so freely and he felt so rested. Maybe he was right. Maybe, just maybe, it would be okay.

"Look, you made it to your 10th birthday in spite of yourself," Dean pounced on Sam, put him in a headlock and rubbed the top of his his head rapidly while Sam, off guard, half-complained, half-snorted because Dean was an idiot but he was _alive_. "Birthday noogie!" Dean announced superfluously, practically suffocating Sam in his armpit before Sam's knee found its way to his chest and pried him off.

Both of them fell back onto the cot laughing breathlessly. Man, life was good.

Dean kneeled up almost immediately. "Ready for your birthday present?"

Sam's expression betrayed his excitement even though he was trying to stay cool. It wasn't like presents were plentiful in their lives, and last night his brother had already given him the gift of sleep, of peace of mind, which was easily the best gift Dean had ever given him. It was hard to keep a straight face even though he said, "You know you aren't supposed to use Dad's money for this stuff."

"I didn't use his money. But it's still good. Like, 'outdid myself' good, and you better appreciate it." He warned.

"I promise no such thing, but give me the present anyway," Sam said, repurposing Dean's commandment of the night before. Sam cracked a smile-he couldn't help it. Dean was into this, into giving something to him. His body language was more of a gift receiver than a gift giver, which was rare when Dean was called upon to give something away.

Despite the buildup, Sam tried to keep his expectations low; it was probably a Pez dispenser from a gas station. Last year, that's what Dean had given him- a Batman Pez dispenser. Sam was actually able to keep it for six months before it ended up with Dean's stuff and that was that. Still, it had been his for a little while. Sam squeezed the early birthday present from Amber still in his fist. Ladybug hair ties and Pez dispensers. It was going to be a good birthday.

Dean half bounced, half slid off the cot. Had Dean been lifting weights? Bulking up? Was Sam really just noticing how 'grown up' his brother was looking everyday? While Sam wrestled with the clearing of the fog that had surrounded his entire waking life for four four days, Dean went back to his bed, rummaged under it for several seconds (probably hid the gift behind car magazines-a place Sam would never have gone) and came up with a brown paper bag. The top had been folded down and taped around.

The grin on Dean's face was 100 percent pure pleasure, and Sam felt himself getting excited in spite of past Pez gifts. And really, he couldn't hold Dean to a standard since Sam's last gift to Dean had been a display of his burgeoning brother-taught five-finger-discount abilities with one of those girl magazines in a plastic bag. (Sam didn't like to consider himself a criminal, so he reconciled the theft with the fact that he wasn't keeping the loot for himself-he had just witnessed Dean staring at it for ten minutes at a rest stop, aware that the clerk was watching the teenaged male with suspicion. Said clerk never suspected the nine-year-old brother, though. And when Sam presented it to Dean a few days later for his birthday, it was like he was the Second Coming or at least the greatest little brother in the history of the world. Dean spent most of his 14th birthday in the bathroom.)

"You can disregard the message on it now," Dean informed as he presented the paper-bound package and Sam took it. There was something written in black sharpie, and out of curiosity he had to read it.

"_If you open this before May 2 I will really kill you."_

"I already feel the love," Sam said wryly.

"Gotta take precautions for everything," Dean smiled and sat down next to him. "Well, stop staring at the bag. You aren't gonna to cry about the lack of wrapping paper, are you?"

Sam smiled and shook his head. His thoughts unconsciously travelled to his history textbook where he had, the night before, stashed the piece of colorful homemade wrapping paper that had Amber's phone number. Hiding it in any kind of textbook was Sam's precaution for a snooping older brother, and that seemed to be working too.

Which reminded him-he had to figure out a way to get Dean out of the motel for a while so he could fulfill his promise of a birthday phone call.

Dean pushed Sam's shoulder.

"Are you awake? Come on."

Obediently Sam came back to the present. He rolled up the top of the paper bag and stuck his hand inside. It felt solid, wooden by the grain, but it had strange ridges in it. Sam prepared himself to be "surprised" by a handmade wooden stake for a vampire, and mentally practised a smile of feigned thanks for yet another gift that Dean really wanted for himself...

...But what emerged from the bag was definitely not a vampire stake. It was some kind of fully finished wooden box about 8 inches long and an inch and a half by an inch in a half. It was the top of the box that arrested Sam's attention-hand carved with a swirling, circular, almost vinelike design in relief. Sam knew his brother was good with a knife, but this was, hands down, the most impressive work he had ever seen. He'd almost been willing to believe it was somehow bought, not made, but for the name SAM WINCHESTER in a carved hand that Sam knew was Dean's (his older brother had the bad habit of liking to carve his name into everything that would take a sharp point).

"Dean..." Sam was beyond impressed.

"Look," Dean took the box from him and pushed one end. It slid open to reveal a nice, long, deep cavity. "Do you know what it is? It's a pen and pencil box. You know, for school or whatever."

Sam's jaw dropped. This was not a Pez dispenser.

"Yeah, do you like it? I got this design from a catalog of old Winchester rifle stocks from the 1800's, so it's totally authentic. I thought it was cool. Made it and stained it in wood shop in the last two schools."

Sam could feel Dean scrutinizing his face, soaking up every expression like a dry rag, and Sam knew he wasn't disappointing because, damn, it was really hard to repress how impressed and moved he actually was.

His brother had just said to him the night before that academics were stupid and unnecessary. It wasn't the first time he had shared that sentiment either, but then, for weeks before, he had been working on this? It wasn't a hunter's weapon. It wasn't something that had any significance to Dean in function at all. He made it to be used everyday in school. Sam had been wrong-even if Dean didn't understand, he was trying. He was. This was beautiful proof of that. And beautiful was the only adjective that could be ascribed to this piece. There was something else about his brother to consider that he never thought about- Dean, who swore like a trucker, flirted artlessly, and bludgeoned his way through interactions with others like an ape could also appreciate something delicate and exquisite, create it, and he could pass it on with pride, not embarrassment.

Sam's eyes filled.

"Dean."

"Do you like it?"

Sam nodded.

"What the hell, are you gonna _cry_ about it?"

Sam swallowed hard and said nothing.

"That's awesome."

Sam looked up. His brother was smiling. "It's cool, right? It suits you. It's badass but kind of pretty, too."

Sam could forgive Dean for the implication that he was somehow "pretty" since "badass" had preceded it. He wiped at his nose. "It's...too nice."

"What the hell are you saying? Ten is a big number-it deserves something special. But just remember, no matter how old you get, you'll always be my 'little brother,' got it?"

Sam nodded.

"Okay, now, say 'thank you' or some crap, and then my perfect little 'Sam receives his awesome present from Dean' fantasy will be concluded." Dean made a photographer's box with his hands and centered Sam's bewildered, wet face in the center.

Sam could do that. Yeah, Dean was a great brother after all, changes included. He deserved his big finish. He definitely did. "Thanks, Dean. Seriously. It is awesome. It's the best thing I've ever gotten."

"Ahh, annnnd...scene." Dean dropped his hands and was clearly riding high on his triumph. Sam was inclined to give him the entire day to be smug about it if he wanted. Maybe that would be okay.

Maybe it was also okay to share some secrets considering how it turned out. Maybe it really was okay to leave things to Dean every once in awhile. After all, the colors of the world were right again; he wasn't feeling jumpy or terrified. His brother had firmly placed himself on a pedestal, and there was not a monster in that closet. Whatever it was, it was gone. Probably for good.

That was the moment when the front door burst open.

In retrospect, Dean's reflexes were impressive. Like, action-star-impressive. The smile and tired left his eyes and his 45 was aimed at the trespasser with both hands. Steady. His finger was on the trigger and his sight was set. Sam's reaction was to freeze.

Almost as lightning fast as the gun was levelled, Dean dropped it.

"Dad?"

(to be continued...)


	9. Ch 9: Gallows Pole

Summary: John returns home with an ominous revelation...

And I am SO SORRY for making everyone wait while I got back into this obnoxiously time-consuming school thing because it turned out this chapter needed a great deal of editing. And I couldn't have done it without Agelade.

And she keeps alluding to stuff from this story in her own, so I have to keep up and be worthy of that. And this was coming...

HOLY CRAP AHHHHHHHHH SO THANKFUL! Thanks, Agelade! People, go read her season 9 "Lustra" episodes because she's a better writer than I am. And also she thinks Boogeyman is canon because I've successfully brainwashed her (nyahaha).

Thank you, SPNMum and Clowns or Midgets for reviewing and always reviewing. Seriously. Thank you so much for your patience!

-Caladrius

* * *

**Chapter 9: "Gallows Pole"**

**Then:**

"Okay, now, say 'thank you' or some crap, and then my perfect little 'Sam receives his awesome present from Dean' fantasy will be concluded." Dean made a photographer's box with his hands and centered Sam's bewildered, wet face in the center.

Sam could do that. Yeah, Dean was a great brother after all, changes included. He deserved his big finish. He definitely did. "Thanks, Dean. Seriously. It is awesome. It's the best thing I've ever gotten."

"Ahh, annnnd...scene." Dean dropped his hands and was clearly riding high on his triumph. Sam was inclined to give him the entire day to be smug about it if he wanted. Maybe that would be okay.

That was the moment when the front door burst open.

Almost as lightning fast as the gun was levelled, Dean dropped it.

"Dad?"

**Now:**

Sam's eyebrows drew together as the small ominous feeling from a moment before stabbed him squarely in the chest. He sat up too, clutching a black and red ladybug into a hand that was suddenly sweaty. There was something to the set of John Winchester's shoulders, at the gaze he leveled at his two boys, that raised the hackles on the back of his neck.

For his part, John stood a moment, his face inscrutable. Was he relieved to see them both all right? Was he getting ready to murder his brother? The silence and stillness hung in the room like a hangman's noose. No one seemed prepared to touch it or break it.

John nodded at something only he knew.

That seemed to be the cue.

"Dad, I can explain." Dean put his gun down, as if the confession required disarmament-a complete and total vulnerability to his executioner.

John put his keys on the table and then fixed his eyes on his eldest son.

"Then explain."

Oh, Jesus, there was no way out of this. Dean looked down, he pursed his lips. Sam wondered if he might actually be concocting a lie to control the damage. If he was, it would be the ultimate first. But John was a million years ahead of them, as usual.

"The truth will come faster, son."

Of course it would, but who in this house respected things like "truth?" Sam felt the blood rush from his fingers and his heart skipped a beat.

"I asked him to," Sam said, faster than Dean could even open his mouth. He'd seen Dean go over his cot once. The memory and the anger and terror of it wasn't cold. He could take this heat if Dean had been willing to aim a gun at his closet all night with intent to kill. It was _his_ heat to take.

Dean looked over at him, his eyes huge. Oh, hadn't he seen that coming? Or was the concept of his little brother taking responsibility for something just so foreign that he couldn't process why his brother was inviting the axe?

"What? Sam, no!"

Sam climbed out of bed. His knees were shaking from the weight of this thing he was trying to take on: the full force of John Winchester's attention. His stare. His _judgment_.

"I could have kicked you out if I had wanted to." Sam tried to say nonchalantly. He looked at Dean and his brain was focussed on imparting two words through brother telepathy: _Shut. Up!_

"What?" Dean looked comically indignant and completely ignored the obvious message. "No, you couldn't've kicked me out. Like hell." He turned back to his father, trying to smooth it over somehow. "I just wanted to be sure. Sam was tired, he hadn't slept in _nights_ and if there was something in the closet just then...Dad."

"Son, I told you to stay out of it." John's voice gave no indication that Dean's best intentions were going to mitigate one second of punishment for his transgression. Sam's chest felt tight. He shouldn't have let Dean do it. He should have pushed at him. He should have pitched some kind of fit, pissed Dean off enough so that he'd leave him alone to carry out that murder himself. Or die in the process.

_Why weren't you here, Dad?_ Sam's brain finally asked the question. Why? Really? Was it only now occurring to him that all of this could have been avoided had their father ever told them _anything_ at all? At the moment when it counted, wouldn't Dean have felt better, more confident, had he been there ? And, dammit, wouldn't Sam have, despite everything, given every ounce of his being to the task of proving himself? Wouldn't he have sold that little part of his soul for a second of praise, or even a _nod_ of approval?

He wanted to say it. Accuse it. But what would be the purpose? So he'd feel better about completely putting his responsibilities on someone else _again?_ Sam bit his lower lip and it felt better than _this_.

"Sam, what were my instructions?"

Sam swallowed, "Dad, I...I didn't want to. That's all. It's not Dean's-"

"Sam," John cut him off. Quietly. The danger was mounting. "I said, what. were. my. instructions?"

Sam cast his mind back, but it wasn't difficult to recall them, _relive_ them. They had nearly stopped his heart after all. "Take the gun. Hold it under the covers. Aim for the eye."

"And?"

And?

"And...and Dean was forbidden to interfere..."

"Those were Dean's instructions, not yours. You missed something. Something important. Try again."

Sam couldn't feel his toes. He scrubbed his brain searching for the one piece he could have possibly forgotten. He'd have protested that that was all there was to it, except Dad's eyes were intense and his voice carried the weight of life in its balance.

When Sam did not immediately respond he looked instinctively at Dean. But Dean's face was blank. His brother shook his head slightly. When the silence hung in the air for too long and the Winchester sons collectively felt the fire beginning under their feet, John said, "I told you to face it down, son."

Face it down...

"You had to be there to look it in the eye. To face what it was giving you. It feeds off of your fear. That's how it had you targeted. That's what kept its attention. The second your brother took your place, it was over. I told you, you had one chance to get rid of it."

The silence in the room worked down deep inside Sam, past childish excuses and sheepish fear of past disobedience, to drill at the bedrock. What broke open was a pit of rage that had been hidden so carefully even Sam didn't understand why his face became hot. His shoulders shook with seismic activity just before a volcanic eruption. Clenching fists ignored the pain of the little plastic hair tie burrowing into his palm.

"That's it? That's what you care about?" Sam carefully didn't look at Dean who was probably sending some psychic brother messages of his own which consisted of primarily two words: _Sam, Stop!_ But the thing he had squashed to his core was open and oozing and Sam had neither will nor inclination to stem the flow if it. "All you care about is killing the monster? Not the fact that maybe it was going to kill me? Maybe that it would have killed Dean? You _left_, Dad. You _always _leave. And...and you didn't tell us _anything. _You _never_ tell us anything."

"I tell you what you need to know." John's expression hadn't changed. He looked tired, true, and unshaved, and there might be the scent of whiskey in the room, but that was always what he looked like, smelled like. To Sam anyway.

Sam stabbed a finger towards the way John had come in. "You walk through the door with a monster in the closet and all you are is pissed off that I didn't shoot it! When I couldn't see straight, when I was..." _so scared_ he almost said, but didn't. If it was feeding off of his fear then everyone in the room already knew how scared he had been. For days. Still, somehow he couldn't admit that to his father out loud. He continued, "You're not happy that I'm alive, that Dean's alive. Not that. Just mad that-"

"_I'm not mad, son!" _

Sam and Dean jumped, and this time John raised his voice. It boomed, shook the cheap plywood drawers in their cheap plywood frames. Sam felt his anger become completely eclipsed by whatever his father was emoting. It happened so rarely, but when it did, it filled the room and left nothing in it. Not even air. It was suffocating. Sam was stunned to silence, his eyes wide.

"I'm not mad, Sam. I'm disappointed."

That was like a physical slap in the face. Sam's eyes dropped to the floor. God, ouch. It wasn't fair that that phrase uttered at him should hurt so badly. It wasn't _right._ His father didn't have the right to be disappointed.

John continued softly. "Sam, I trusted you to take care of this. You were a target, but not the only target."

A cold dread froze all last vestiges of Sam's fury. What...what was he saying?

"The boogeyman is a creature of pattern and profile and It doesn't leave hungry, Sam. If you didn't see it, then someone else did."

Sam thought back. His father had been gone every day for hours or more for the last several weeks. That was all...research?

"Dad...you...did you know I was a target? Right...right from the start?" As soon as Sam asked, he wished he could take the question back. He didn't want to know the answer to that question. He didn't want to know that his father had brought him here as bait, had put him through nights of terror and sleeplessness, that his own father could do that to him in the pursuit of a kill. That would be too much, wouldn't it?

John's voice was steely. It passed judgment without mercy but never answered his question. "I put it into your hands, Sam, because I trusted you. You could have-should have done it. The only way you could have failed was to turn away from the responsibility. And you did."

His youngest son felt the load of those words break across his back. He pressed his closed fist to his stomach. He felt sick.

Dean tried to intervene, "Dad-"

"Sam is right, Dean. It was his choice. He knew what he had to do."

"Where...where did you go, Dad?" Sam was whispering now. It was the only way he could get the words out, and the words wanted to come out. Stubbornly. It was his only and last protection against this onslaught of _disappointment _which had somehow succeeded in drying up the overwhelming anger than had been there before. "Why weren't you here?"

"I told you, there was a profile. You weren't the only possible target, Sam. And the other targets would have been children-children who would have had a harder time facing their fears than my son. Or so I thought."

"Wait...then. Then..." Sam felt his lungs heaving. It was hard to speak. "What...what happened?"

"Since it didn't come here, it went somewhere else." John looked old. Really old. And the tone of his sentence was like a flatline. It was over for him. His hunt was over and he had failed, was that it? His son was a failure and so they had both failed and someone had...

Dad was always so worried about _everyone_ else!

But it was hard to be pissed about that now when the implications of his father's words were sinking like a broken boat in icy waters.

Sam shook his head because this was just supposed to be _his_ problem. It had _always _been his problem, right? "What...happens? Wh-when it...takes you?"

John looked sincerely like he'd rather just stop talking now. He picked up his keys. They clinked in his hand and he closed a fist around them, staring at the shape of that in his silence. Almost reluctantly he put them back down and drew back his hand away purposefully. Was he thinking of leaving? Was he going to try to find out who was now maybe gone _forever_? Was he trying to run away from his pathetic loser of a son who had just _disappointed_ him and had let some other person take his place?

Or was the truth _that _bad that he needed to be protected from it?

"The lore isn't clear, but it doesn't matter. A feeding ritual, maybe. Wherever the victims go, they don't come back. They're gone forever as far as the police are concerned."

Forever.

No.

Was it strange that now he didn't hate his father, he hated _himself_? Was it fair that he hated himself because he had failed at this? Did other 10-year-old boys ever wonder if they let someone die for them?

No. It just couldn't be. Kids in his class complained about parents who wouldn't let them play Nintendo until midnight. They didn't complain about having to save people from the boogeyman because their dads said so.

"But maybe," Sam tried, attempting to stem the tidal wave of guilt that was breaking right behind the flimsy barrier of denial he was still attempting to hold up. "But maybe it just...left. Maybe it didn't...take anyone else. Maybe it didn't."

John took a deep breath and Sam liked to think that it was because his father was considering how completely and totally right he could be. He only had a few seconds to cling to that flimsy hope before his father's next words destroyed it.

"It wasn't any of the ten kids on my profile list because the 'FBI' had already visited their houses in the last three days to make preparations. But the police scanner confirmed a missing kid early this morning. A little girl."

A...a little girl?

"M...maybe she just...ran away. Maybe she just wanted to leave."

John shook his head. There was a whole story in that one movement. It said so many things because this was Dad, and when he wasn't shouting he was communicating in these small gestures that carried the weight of a little girl's life.

"What...what did the police say?"

John said nothing. He walked to the window. He opened the blinds and the light rushed into the room, exposing them. Exposing everything.

"Dad!"

"That's enough, son. It's over."

"Sam, don't."

This time it was Dean. He had come from wherever else he had been in the room up until that point and gently took his brother's arm right above the elbow. So, his brother was getting all of Dad's "don't want to talk about it," vibes too. So what? He couldn't just...he couldn't just be expected to let it go. Dean and Dad were trying to protect him _now?_

"What did the police say, Dad? You don't think...you don't think I should know? Shouldn't I know?" Sam pulled away from Dean's hand and took a trembling step forward because this was his. Because this was on him and he knew it.

"Her mother thinks some stranger kidnapped her in the night when she was at work. People fall through the cracks, son-they don't get on a medical radar and they can't be researched. Like us."

_Like us._

"What do you mean? What does the hospital have to do with this? Was she sick or something?"

"_This is my normal seat. I've been...sick for a few days." _

Well, no. Just...no. That wouldn't be it at all. So many little girls in this town and there'd have to be a dozen that were sick today. Right now.

Sam's hand was full of a biting piece of plastic. He was just going to do this now before he freaked himself, and he didn't really care what his father thought of him or Dean or anyone. His legs were shaking a little because the ugliness of this confrontation with his father was sitting on his shoulder, so he had to grab the back of the chair when he got to the table. He flipped through the pages of his history textbook so fast that he ripped page 104.

"Sam?" Dean's voice was honest and confused because you don't just walk out of a conversation with Dad.

"I have to make a phone call."

It was that simple to say. What were they going to do? He wasn't a _prisoner_ here yet, was he? That little piece of wrapping paper was in his free hand and then the phone was under his fingers and the numbers on the paper were a little blurry because his fingers were sweating and smudging the crayon. And then his finger slipped. Did he hit two 1's and not an 8? God, why were his fingers shaking so badly? It wasn't like he was calling the President of the United States.

He put phone back onto the receiver and when he picked it up again, he made himself calm. Her hair tie was between his palm and the headphone. Safe. He made his fingers dial slower this time.

It rang once. The woman who picked up the phone was frantic, her voice shredded from tears.

"_Hello? Hello?"_

Sam couldn't speak and he couldn't move.

"_Hello? Who is this? Please...please do you have my daughter? Please. Please, just...just let me talk to her. Just let me-"_

Sam slammed the phone back into the cradle and shook all over.

Fuck. This wasn't happening. Fuck fuck _fuck!_ He opened his hand. He stared at the little black and red ladybug that he had protected so carefully from his brother's ridicule all night long-Amber's little charm that had given him sleep for the first time in so long...and in return, he had killed her.

He had killed her.

"_Sam, I'm really tired..."_

It was a punch to the gut. The anger was all gone. His father's disappointment didn't even register anymore. And whatever petty little thing he had been trying to hide from Dean was just...

Sam squeezed his hand to the shape of his birthday present, bruising himself. He pressed it to his chest. Over his heart.

His heart.

It was all ripped to bloody chunks and so was the protective veil over the truth.

"_I'm so much trouble._"

Sam turned to face them. Dean and his father were like bugs in amber. In Amber. Frozen forever. Frozen. Cold. _Gone_ _forever._

He looked at his father and finally understood.

There was a stillness in that motel room as if there were not three men experiencing a moment of horrible confusion or revelation of one kind or another. Sam lived a lifetime in that moment because no one was going to be able to rescue him from it. For the first time, he was completely alone with the knowledge that he had made a huge and horrible mistake, and the only one he could actually blame was himself.

The silence was ruptured by his next three words:

"I killed Amber."

There was a beat and then Dean's eyes went wide. "Oh, fuck."

_Can't swear like that in front of Dad, Dean. He'll slap your face. But I killed a kind, lonely little girl. What's my punishment? What do I get? What do I deserve? I had the gun in my hand. I had the gun right in my hand and I could have faced it. _

Spirited away by the boogeyman. She had been seeing what he had been seeing, hadn't she? Tired and thin and sick and...and so much like him. But...but she wouldn't have known what to do. She was excited...

_Because I said I was going to call her._

There was movement in the room. He thought he heard Dean call his name, and his father was saying something, but nothing was registering in Sam's mind except the knowledge that he was a murderer because he didn't do what he was supposed to do. What he could do. What he should have done. He was always letting other people take over his burdens. He was always so morally indignant about shooting anything, including a monster. And so Amber was gone.

She was gone _forever_.

Sam felt two hands on his shoulder. He was shaken a little, but not cruelly He looked up into his father's eyes. There was a kind of pain there, deep inside. It was a hard-edge pain. "Sam, you need to remember this. Remember this. If you won't pull the trigger when it's time, someone will die-you, your brother, a complete stranger. If you don't act when it's time to act, someone will die. It was time, Sam."

_It's time._

_Happy Birthday, Sam. You are a coward and a murderer._

Sam's chest constricted and oxygen and life was so far away because as much as he didn't want to, he got it. He perfectly understood what was going on, what had happened, _what he had done_.

There was some noise in the background. It was fuzzy and funny sounding, as if he was at the bottom of a well and there was a point of wavering light way, way up there where his brother was saying something like "You can't say that to Sam" because Dean lived in reality and he knew. Because he had helped kill things with Dad and he knew...

_He knew Sam could never be more than a failure that needed to be protected, even from himself._

So it would go on. And on and on and on. And somewhere there was a mother who was crying for her little girl who was gone _forever_. In his hand was a little plastic hair tie that had once been in a piece of notebook paper wrapping paper with his name on it from a little girl who had smiled at him and who was now gone _forever._ The earthquake in his heart shook him down and covered him up and it was so _hard_ to breathe.

More sounds-maybe a yell-up there somewhere where good people got to live.

The door shut, and Sam knew knew his father had left.

The severing of his presence cut any and all ties keeping Sam vertical. He lost sensation in his legs and fell to his knees.

"Sammy!"

Dean's arms were around him. He was holding him up. He was saying a bunch of things that were all running together in a way he hadn't heard in a long time. Maybe never before or ever again:

"Sammy, don't listen to him. This isn't your fault, okay? This isn't your fault. You didn't kill her, Sam. That monster did it. You didn't know. Sammy, look at me!"

He blinked, but Dean's face was a long way through a lot of cold water and ripples and heavy earth that pushed at him relentlessly. It was hard. He didn't want to fight it.

"Sammy!"

In a flash of sudden clarity, Sam felt and saw everything just as it actually was. Dean was frantic, there were tears in his eyes and a red mark on his face. Devastation looked different on him-Maybe it was because he was looking more like a grownup or maybe because Sam had actually never seen this expression.

It was amazing how horrible it was to know things. Sam knew things now, too, and he hated himself.

Sam opened his hand and showed Dean. It felt weird to uncurl his fingers from it, to let Amber go. It was wrong to think that this would be all he had left of her. It was so strange to imagine that she could be at a lunch table yesterday and never ever ever ever again.

Dean was looking at it. He was looking at it too and that hurt of reality felt right. It had to be real if Dean was looking at it too.

"She gave this to me." He said matter-of-factly, sharing the reality that he could no longer deny. "It was an early birthday present. Do you know, I killed her, Dean." He said it calmly, making himself accept it. It hurt so badly he thought he might die and immediately his mind closed his eyes to to the gallons and gallons of cold water between himself and everything else. The heavy earth wasn't oppressing anymore, it was comforting. It was dark and deep and if it seemed too quiet, then that was okay.

Dean grabbed his hand and closed it around the hair tie, as if he, too, couldn't even bear to look at it.

"Don't, Sammy. Don't. Blame me. Blame _me._"

But Sam wasn't going to blame Dean. He had been happy, secretly, that Dean was taking away his fear and giving him peace of mind. He had been happy at the actions that had led to this.

_Amber, I was happy and you were terrified...and now you're gone and we'll never talk again. Never forgive me for that. Never forgive me._

His face was covered with water from his eyes and from Dean's. His body and mind squeezed into a small place. He grasped at it. Clung to it. Escaped into it.

_Sam..._

_No. You're not here. You left. _

_Silver smile. I did leave. But I didn't leave. Did you leave? You can leave for now. I like you, Sam. Now you know. Did you think that was easy? You did, didn't you? But now you know. _

_I know. I know. I know it I know I don't want to know. I don't want to._

_But you can't _un_know, Sam. And someday you will know so much more. But don't worry; you can leave forever if you want. You can come with me ... _

_No. No...It's _not_ time._

_But it will be, Sam...It will be._

* * *

Three hours later, Dean stared at the wooden box with the intricate scrollwork. He thought about throwing it out. He really did. He wanted to burn down everything in this room that reminded him of Osseo, Wisconsin, but it was very likely the arson would cause some kind of trouble with the law, and they just couldn't afford it. Not with things the way they were now.

Dean stowed it all into the box, his feelings, and shoved it into Sam's rucksack. He stood up and flung it over his shoulder along with his own pack. The roar of the Impala's engine outside indicated that Dad was done on his end and it was time to go.

Taking a breath, Dean ventured to his brother who sat blankly on the edge of the cot.

"Okay, Sammy, we're going, okay? We're gonna get out of here. Doesn't that sound great?"

Sam said nothing. He'd said nothing for three hours. Dean knew something was wrong when Sam just stopped crying, stop clinging to his shirt after Dad left but this was...

Fuck.

_Okay. Get your shit together, Winchester._

"Sam, seriously, come on, man. You're freakin' me out." He took a knee in front of his brother. Sam's eyes were open. His hands were in his lap, but he was looking past Dean somewhere else. Somewhere way way way far away.

Dean swallowed.

Sam didn't _not_ make faces when he was sad. He didn't _not_ make faces at anytime. When Sam was mad at you, you knew it. Sam wasn't mad, he was just...just _gone._

"Seriously, Sam. Snap the fuck out of this. D'you hear the car? We can't make Dad come in here..."

And hell, that should have worked like a charm _somehow_ even if it was just to get a sour face or a scoff or a look of, _fuck me_, terror.

But there was nothing.

"I'm gonna leave you here then." Dean tried, tossing the phrase off as if it was the easiest thing in the world to say when,_ be honest_, it was like punching himself in the gut. Even when he got up and turned to leave, had gotten halfway to the door, his little brother never said a word and never moved. Dean knew, because he had been watching.

Dean pivoted his head and stared at the door that he hadn't touched yet. The door was still closed because it couldn't move unless it was acted upon, but there was Sam over there on the bed and he should have said something, moved _something_. After a threat like that he should have been _running_.

Without a word Dean turned back around, approached the cot, and reached down. He took Sam's hand and his heart gave a huge leap as it squeezed back a little, as if it knew something about holding on and was doing it even out of spite.

"Yeah, that's right. We gotta go now. Come on."

He gave an experimental pull. Sam slid forward until his feet touched the ground and he stood up, but his expression never changed. He was like a robot. Dean stared at the tenuous connection between them and reminded himself that he had stuffed his feelings inside of Sam's little birthday present, _okay_, along with that damn hair tie even though he shouldn't have done that.

When he walked to the door this time, Sam walked with him. When they left and Dean shut that door he cursed it. He pulled his brother to the Impala and opened the door. Sam obediently crawled inside as if running on a Sammy program: Into the Impala, out of the Impala, and so on and so on. Dean went around and got in next to his brother who sat so small in the seat, tilted halfway like a ragdoll discarded by the side of the road, and just stared.

Dean looked up into the rearview mirror and met his father's dark gaze.

Dean's face stung. His heart was beating at the inside of the pretty and badass box in the bag at his feet.

Dad looked like shit.

Dean nodded his head and that was the cue. The Impala went into reverse and the Winchesters shook the dust from their feet...

(to be continued...oh yes.)


	10. Ch 10: Fuel

**Summary: The back story has caught up with the more recent past, but Sam's not letting this boogeyman thing go. No, he's not. And he's got a lead on someone who might be able to shed some light on things. Nothing has lost momentum after all, Deaners. So sorry.**

Thank you a million times to reviewers! **SPN Mum** and **Clowns or Midgets**, I worship you for your dedication! Seriously. It's like, not right if I don't hear from you each chapter. I'll bake you both cakes if you ever come to PA. You too, **Krikanalo**. Thank you, **Sylvia3**7, for your passion. **Baileylovesyou0400**, I do love driving you crazy in good ways. :D

And, of course, muchas gracias to** Agelade **who reads my crap ("it's good!" she says) and finds my stoopid typos and just basically "Sam's out" for me to keep me motivated. And also for continuing to think "Boogeyman" is somehow canon for her "Lustra" season 9 episodes of awesomeness (all of which I get to see and beta while they are being made aahhaha I'm so privileged).

You should go read **Agelade's **stuff now. Her dialogue is like MAGICAL.

* * *

**Chapter 10: "Fuel"**

**April 2, 2007**

**Sam 23**

**Dean 27**

Open road. Budding green to the left and the right. Curves and inclines and it wasn't Iowa or Ohio _thank God_ because there was nothing there to look at except corn. Or maybe alfalfa. Vegetables. Whatever. But Sam was in the passenger seat and after days of bullying Dean into motel rooms while he worked on his own he'd suddenly gotten passive this morning. And that should have raised the red flag, yeah, but he said he'd finally found a case that wouldn't involve loads of people or your friendly neighborhood FBI. He promised it was a _normal_ case (no dreams attached) and Dean thought maybe it was going to be okay.

"Eastern State Penitentiary, huh? Why does that sound familiar?"

"I don't know, Dean. Prison on your mind lately?"

Dean made a face at the road.

"You're never gonna let me live down your Great SWAT Escape from Milwaukee, are you?"

Sam smirked, but it was short lived. His eyes dropped quickly back to the printouts and newspapers in his hands. It wasn't difficult to figure that response out, though. Stopping the shapeshifter at the bank had cost the Winchesters a lot more than they bargained for. Like putting Dean so squarely on the Fed radar that Sam had kept him out of the majority of the last two hunts. Like that poor ex bank security guard, Ron, facedown in a pool of his own well-meaning blood.

Dean cleared his throat. "Hey, give me a break. I've had practically nothing to do but listen to the radio, watch the news, and take long, long hot showers."

Dean glanced at Sam and was somewhat gratified to see his brother wrinkle his nose and process _that_ little visual_._

"Then you probably heard about the three people who died there last week on a ghost hunt."

"Oh wait...yeah. Some...Ghost Facer-ish group turned on each other or something."

Sam sifted through two printouts. "Something like that. According to the police report, the three investigators were found dead in the west wing in the early morning. Looked like," he paused and tilted his head. "One guy's head was beaten in with a piece of broken masonry, another guy had a shard of glass shoved up through his nose cavity into his frontal lobe-"

"Pleasant."

"-and a woman hung herself from an exposed beam with cords from their own surveillance equipment."

"_Very_ pleasant. Amateurs."

"A lot of paranormal investigators are." He dropped the printout to his lap. "_Most_ of them are. Didn't stop you from giving Ron credit for _his_ investigation." The head of lengthening hair shook slightly and refocused. "But this group had a good reputation. At least within their own community."

"Uh huh." Dean was unimpressed and pointedly avoided the Ron comment. "So, what're we thinking, vengeful ghost possession?"

"Yeah, I mean, that's what it looks like. Eastern State survives financially on its ghost tours and investigations. Two weeks ago they opened part of the west wing that had been previously blocked off due to structural issues."

"So, those three were the first group officially in there?"

"Yeah." Sam thumbed through another printout. "And get this, the construction company shoring up the foundations for that part of the wing experienced four crew accidents during the renovation, and they all happened during the day. Broken arm from a fall, a concussion caused by a trip, things like that... Minor, but if they were ghost-inspired, pretty powerful for midday."

"In other words, they woke up some pissed off former inmate and now he's possessing idiots with infrared cameras, shivving them with handy broken material, and breaking necks."

"It all fits. So now Eastern State has closed its doors pending an official investigation. The ghost hunting community is," Sam laughed mirthlessly, "pretty much freaking out about it. Apparently it's like their Mecca."

Dean glanced over at Sam and then back to the road.

"So, what, you want to sneak in, figure out who's offing supernatural groupie co-eds and make this _our_ case?"

Sam looked up. "Last I checked, that is what we do."

"Yeah, clean out the vengeful ghost so this place can open its doors and continue to sponge off the amateur masses? Seems counterproductive to the whole 'keeping the sheep safe' concept you were so on about in Milwaukee, Sam."

Sam shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Dean, they're gonna eventually open their doors again and more people _are_ going to die if we, the _professionals_, don't intervene. Besides, I don't see the problem. This case is perfect for us. For you. You love Philadelphia, remember? You got to jack a cement truck last time we were there."

Dean smiled and nodded his head at the memory. The ghost of H. H. Holmes wouldn't be bothering anymore pretty blondes for a while. "Heh heh, yeah. Did you see the look on Jo's face when I backed that thing up? She was impressed, wasn't she?"

Sam looked at the ceiling and chuckled.

"Of course she was. I'm just sayin'..." Dean paused, "we've got a lot of other stuff on our plate right now. Why are you on fire for this?"

It suddenly got quiet. Sam turned his head and looked out the window. Dean took his eyes off the road to peer at him because Sammy Silence was Thinking-Too-Much silence.

"Hey. What aren't you tellin' me here?"

Sam licked his lips and slowly slid another computer printout from the bottom of his pile. "We're gonna practically pass through Greensburg, Pennsylvania while we're on the Turnpike." He checked a mile marker on the side of the road. "In like...two hours."

Dean's eyes narrowed.

"Okay? Greensburg? What's in Greensburg?"

Silence.

"Sam, come on. Greensburg?"

"Amber's mother lives there now."

"_What?_" The blood in Dean's fingers froze almost instantly. "Sam, come on."

"Dean, just...just hear me out." And Sam physically turned his body in his seat, somehow managing to not spill his research material all over the floor.

"After what she did to you? You've gotta be kidding. What good could _possibly_ come of this? Don't even answer that question." Dean slammed a hand on the steering wheel. He didn't want to hear that name. He didn't want to think of that name or that girl. Never. _Dammit_.

"She moved a month after...after everything happened. You were right when you said we have nothing to go on with the boogeyman, but this is my case and I've decided to work it. Dad didn't give enough information about the profile back then, but we know at least one of its actual victims. If this were any other case, we'd be following up on that. She and I...we had to have something in common, right? It's a place to start, and I figure if Dad could put it all together somehow, then I could, too, maybe, if I have some leads."

"And you mean to tell me that you've been researching her? Doing all of this, and _hiding_ it from me, Sam?" Dean's voice rose.

"I wasn't...I wasn't hiding it, I was just looking into it. You're right, our plate has been full, but I can't just _forget _it Dean. I can't. Especially not now."

His little brother sat back and gave an unsettled sigh, shifted restlessly in his seat.

"Sam, you have to be honest, man. What's going on in that head, huh? Haven't you considered that all this is gonna put you into a state where you might not..." Dean cut himself off and shook his head.

"Where I might not, what? Be able to function when it counts? I keep telling you, that's the whole reason why I _have _to do this." He lifted a paper. "Farrah Dixon. She's a manager at an IHOP. You love IHOP. And it's on the way. It would take maybe an hour."

Dean was getting sick of the attempts to bribe him out of his reluctance, his anger, his full on _fear_ of the consequences of this whole thing. Sam didn't get it because Sam was _gone_ when he was...gone. That time when he was 10? Even Dad had started to think he might not snap out of it after all.

"That's not the point, Sam, and you know it."

"I had a dream, okay?"

Dean stopped with his mouth open, ready to keep going. _Dammit_. Should have known.

"What kind of dream?"

"I don't know. I don't know anymore. I don't know, but I saw her again and..." he clenched his fists and Dean could hear it in his voice. "I feel like something is close. I'm not wrong, Dean. Dad must have purposefully kept all of the boogeyman info from his journal, from Bobby. Dad knew something, he _knew_ something, and then...and then." Sam shook his head. "What if there really is...some kind of connection to Yellow Eyes? Isn't that part of the plate? If I'm going to fail, again, who's to say that finishing this couldn't have prevented it in some way? It was my first mission, and I...I screwed it up."

"Sam, you didn't do anything. You were _nine_ and hadn't slept for days, okay? And anyway, I was the one who took the responsibility." My God, he didn't like talking about this, making it _real _again.

Sam was getting emotional too. "That's the problem, Dean, but it wasn't your fault. It was my responsibility. Will you face the fact that you will never be able to change my mind on that, okay, and let me do this? Please. Just one hour. If it gets us nowhere, then it was just an hour, and I'll shut up about it."

"Sam." Dean swallowed something that wanted to choke him. Sam was getting too close to this. He wasn't listening. "God, why am I letting you do this to us all over again?"

It was a rhetorical question. He hadn't expected an answer, but he got one.

"Because you can't stop me, Dean." Sam's voice was quiet. Resigned. "Because I will do this one with or without you."

The road became blurry. _Fuck._

"Someday I'm gonna have to lock you up for your own good, Sam. Fair warning."

Dean could feel Sam relax a little at that, as if his big brother were joking, but he had no idea how terrifyingly possible those words felt in his mouth.

* * *

"Hey, what is it?" Dean smacked Sam's chest when his brother turned around to look behind them for the second time. The Impala was parked and his brother was rooted to the sidewalk of Anytown, America somewhere in Western Pennsylvania. "If you don't wanna do this, just say so. You won't be twisting my arm."

Sam winced and then narrowed his eyes slightly.

"You... get the feeling we're being watched?"

Dean glanced behind them, behind the Impala on this generic residential street in this "city" that was more like a glorified little town. With an art museum. Across the street was a man in his mid to late 60's, impossibly tan, sitting shirtless on his porch. At his feet was an old orange cat, asleep by the looks of it. From the color of his skin and the way he rocked back in the beat up computer chair converted to porch recliner, people-watching was likely his primary hobby.

"What, that guy? He's a porch sitter, Sammy. Every old town has one." He gave a chin nod and smile at the colorful local who did nothing but stare back. "I don't know. Maybe it's the cat. Want me to go interrogate the cat?"

Sam rolled his eyes and shrugged Dean off the way he always did when superior humor escaped him.

"What?"

"Just, come on. Or stay in the car."

"Hell, no." Dean caught up to his longer-legged brother who was striding purposefully towards the stoop of a standard brick two-story house. A few pink spring flowers stood in a couple of pots near the door.

"So, we're plains-clothing this? What's our angle?" Dean asked as they stopped before the door. His brother's eyes slid to him briefly. "Well, come on, Sam, don't tell me you haven't planned this."

"Just follow my lead, okay?"

Dean's expression was "if-you-say-so" and he blew out a breath as Sam pushed the doorbell. Bad idea. All of this. Sam's arms were by his side, and they clenched and released rhythmically. Compulsively. Dean's jaw moved. In two seconds he was going to take his stupid brother by the front of his jacket...

The door cracked and then opened to reveal a woman in maybe her late thirties early forties. She might have been Dean's type once (pretty and adventurous and ready to go), but now the lines around her brown eyes were tired. Suspicious. Her hair was hastily pulled back, and a thin wrist clutched the screen door handle from the inside.

"Yes?"

"Um...Ms. Dixon?" Sam faltered with his mouth open. Dean saw the face and tried to smile benevolently at the woman, his mouth ready to apologize, to grab this stupid kid...and then his jaw went slack when his brother spoke again. "My name is Sam. Sam Winchester?"

_What the actual fuck, Sammy?_

But something glimmered in the cold recesses of Farrah Dixon's eyes. She studied his brother anew but without the lens of fear. "Sam...Winchester?"

"I'm so sorry I just...just showed up without warning. We happened to be on our way east, and...and I was hoping I could have a minute or two of your time?"

It was the puppy face-good lord, that face-but it was so genuine, so open, so obviously carrying a weight of shared sorrow that Dean thought this plan was so crazy it just might work.

That was when she looked at Dean, and he realized, suddenly, that he wasn't wanted.

"This is my older brother, Dean," Sam said quickly. "We work together. He's okay."

"_He's okay?" Really, Sam?_

"Hi," Dean waved like a cowboy, flashing the smile that usually got the best response. Usually.

She nodded and pushed the door further. "Come in. When I got your e-mail, Sam, I was so...you understand why I just...couldn't believe it."

_When she got your _e-mail?

Dean leveled a look at his brother that said "when we leave here, you have an _assload_ of explaining to do" which Sam fended off with a whispered "not now" as Amber's mother led the way into a plain living room, brightly lit with sunshine, and gestured for them to sit on a tan-colored couch. Farrah ran her hands down her thin arms, unsure, and then finally sat down on a tapestry-covered chair to Sam's left.

"Oh my God, I can't believe this. After all this time. And her birthday coming up." She put a hand to her mouth to still the emotion there. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. I didn't give you any warning we were showing up."

At least Sam had the decency to have not expected there would be a "yes" to this plan, but that was cold comfort because right now Dean wanted to be somewhere very far away. He should have stayed in the car. The emotions in the room between the two of them were suffocating.

"No, no. It's okay. I'm off today and...I tried to find out who you were, back then, but...but then the school said you withdrew, that you were gone, and they were forwarding your records but they couldn't tell me where. And then you sent that e-mail this morning and I thought, does this mean something? Because I've been dreaming about her so much lately."

Dean quickly looked at Sam's face. Oh yeah, no doubt about it-his brother hadn't been expecting that. This was going to go south so quick, so bad...

"You...you said you've been dreaming about her?"

Farrah nodded. "She walks right out of my closet and says...'Sam's going to call me on our birthday, Mommy.' Just like...just like she did on the phone that night. The night before...before some...monster took her away from me."

"Monster?" Dean asked, surprised.

"What else would you call a person who takes an eight-year-old girl from her home? Who never calls, who never...who never leaves...leaves anything for me to bury?"

Oops. And there was Sam, on cue, with the curdled milk look as he grabbed a tissue from the box on the coffee table and handed it to her.

"In your e-mail you said that you were trying to solve it? To find Amber?"

Sam sat up. "Yeah, my brother and I are...kind of like private investigators. I didn't know Amber for very long but...but I remember her. I was new in town and she was...she made me feel welcome. It's hard to explain. But if I can do something, I want to help."

The woman sighed. "Frankly, I gave up hope of ever finding her, but...but to meet you, finally, it gives me a...link. A link to her. I feel a little closer to her now." She rested her hand lightly on Sam's, and it was like the flipping of a switch.

Sam's eyes were filling. Crap.

Dean jumped in. Someone had to hold the torch here. "Um. Ms. Dixon, we're trying to put together a profile of the...monster...who separated you from your daughter. Is there anything you could tell us about her? Anything that might have made her..." Dean searches, "stand out?"

She sighed and her shoulders dropped and she repeated "stand out," with not a little bitterness.

"Amber was such a good girl. I mean that. A few weeks after she was born she had a fever so severe she stopped breathing." Farrah took a deep breath. "I had Amber when I was fifteen. I didn't know how to be a mother. The paramedics brought her back, and she was never strong after that, but my God, that little girl had such a big heart." She bit her bottom lip hard.

Sam nodded.

"Amber had this...uncanny ability to know what you were thinking, and she wanted so badly to please people. It wasn't really apparent until she was about five, but sometimes she would...answer thoughts I was having in my head. Answer them out loud, swore I had asked them to her. And she...she was so empathic. It must have been hell for her because I was trying to survive with her and I worked crazy hours and was so stressed out all of the time. It got to the point where all it would take would be me walking through the door and she would cry, and of course, I was tired so I yelled about that...I was a terrible mother."

Sam put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Where was her father in all of this?"

She shook her head and pressed the tissue to her nose. "Her father was never in the picture. He was a kid who 'got me in trouble,' and his family moved away the year after she was born and I had to drop out."

Sam's brow quirked. "You said...her father wasn't around? He didn't...he didn't leave on a hunting trip when Amber was five and not come back?"

"No, he never...why? Why ask that? Did she say that to you?"

Sam opened his mouth, checked what he was about to say. "I'm probably remembering wrong."

"Did _your _father hunt? Did he leave on a hunting trip and not come back?" She asked, innocently, but Dean watched the color drain out of his brother's face. He had to hold himself back from grabbing Sam's arm and hauling ass out of there.

"Amber was like that. She said things, tried to connect to people. She didn't mean to lie to you, Sam. I swear. It was like this...immediate and unconscious reaction." She put her hand on Sam's knee. It was pretty clear Sam was undone, but this lady would never know exactly why.

"Are you saying...are you saying your daughter could read minds?" Dean said finally.

"I know it sounds crazy, but yes. I mean that. But it didn't work out for her because she alienated anyone who ever got close to her. They called her a freak, bullied her at school. She was a complete outcast, and her health...it must have been horrible for her, but she was so quiet. I was always busy trying to keep a roof over our head..." The remorse in her voice was a mile of deep ocean.

Sam swallowed. He looked at the ceiling. It was so clear that he was going back there, and it was tripping every alarm system in Dean's head. This was some sophisticated torture, right here, and he had had enough.

"Thank you, Ms. Dixon. We're sorry to have bothered you, brought this up, and we'll go now." Dean did grab Sam's coat sleeve.

"No, wait." Sam pushed him back. "Ms. Dixon, did Amber...did Amber talk about anything weird before she...disappeared? Did she behave strangely?"

"She...she stopped sleeping. She developed that little-child fear of the dark and the closet and wouldn't sleep. Which brought on a fever. I had to take off work and we were behind on the rent and the gas company was threatening to shut us off." She swallowed and shook her head. "I...I prioritized things so wrong. I thought I was doing the right thing and I...I ignored what my baby needed. She needed me to be there. She needed me to hold her and tell her it was okay, that _she_ was okay just the way she was. God. Just because you bring a child into this world doesn't mean you have the answers...until it's too late. Some mistakes can't be fixed."

_Most mistakes couldn't be fixed, just repeated. Get the picture, Sammy!_

Amber's mother stood up. "Wait here, please. There's...there's something I want to show you, Sam." His brother managed to nod and she walked out of the room.

Dean took the chance to whisper, "Sam, don't do this. Let's just go."

And he knew that at any other time Sam would have told him to back off, to give him five more minutes, to argue that it was worth it, but he didn't. He put his face into his hands and closed himself away in his grief. The old fear in the pit of Dean's stomach crept up into his mouth, into his throat, a choking anger, _fear_...

She returned with a yellowing piece of paper.

"Sam."

His little brother looked up and he was upset and it wasn't professional, no, but he had introduced himself as Sam Winchester, and so, yeah, this came with the name. This hurt came with the territory.

"If...if you never find my daughter, I just always wanted you to know that...that I am grateful. You were right to be mad for her sake. Thank you for telling her that I loved her. She believed you. You must have been earnest because she would have known if you were lying. She was like that." Shakily she handed Sam back the letter he had written in pencil so many years ago.

Sam held that paper in his hands and he was nine-years-old. Dean never thought he'd see that little brother again-the boy who wrote poems and hid them, who once studied a daisy for a half an hour because it was _"so soft, Dean!"_-but here he was, raw, tattered. Beaten. He was nine and then he was ten, and he was lost, and he was saying _"I killed her..."_

"Please...don't thank me." It was so full of _guilt. _

_Fuck you, world. Leave my brother out of your drama. Leave him out of it!_

* * *

"Hey, you okay?"

Two hours of quiet turnpike time for Sam to process everything into his little notebook was long enough.

Sam's hand paused.

"Yeah."

"Um, pardon my French, but you seem pretty fucking far from okay."

At that, he did look up.

"I'm managing."

"Ain't the same thing, Sammy."

"Yeah, well, it's the thing that counts, right?" He went back to writing.

"Maybe. So, how long was it gonna be before you told me about the dreams and the e-mails, huh?"

"When they actually...led to something. And they did." Sam swallowed and looked away. "It was all just paper pushing to this point. If you know how to work a computer, you can find anyone in this world, Dean. And it was one e-mail, just one to verify she was who I thought she was, for her to hear from me."

"Okay? And the dreams?"

His brother sighed. "They started about a week ago. With her. She...Amber she came out of the closet in the motel room, and said..." He stopped.

"What did she say?"

"She said, 'call me on my birthday, Sam'."

Dean got a chill in spite of the fact that eerie shit was pretty much his job.

"Like her Mom said? What, like...like some kind of Carol-Ann-through-the-tv-static SOS? Like, 'call me on the Dead Phone' thing or what?"

Sam shrugged his shoulders.

"How many times?"

The engine hummed as miles sped by.

"How many times, Sam?"

"Three."

"What the hell, and you didn't think that was worth mentioning?" Dean remembered waking up from his own nightmare not long ago. Sam at the computer. Sam with that hair tie. It all made sense now. Even then, the closed-mouth little bastard.

"Dean, seriously, if I give you a head's up everytime I dream something weird, feel something off, see something strange, you'd barely let me go to the bathroom by myself."

"Oh yeah. _That's_ comforting."

"Try to put yourself in my shoes for 20 seconds, Dean. I mean, there's a demon out there who's killed our mother and father and told me he has 'plans' for me. On top of that, add in the dreams that come true about people dying, ghosts from my past, and that constant feeling that I'm being watched. And I won't even bring up Meg and her revenge possession, the things I did when I wasn't...me. I _shot_ you." Dean could feel Sam looking at him pointedly. "I'm _managing_ it, okay, or else my big brother is gonna have to kill me to save me from myself."

"Hey, hey. I told you, not gonna happen." Dean backed off, but he had just flipped the switch from "Think About That" to "Hell No, Not Now, Thanks" and proceeded with as much detachment as he could. The white knuckles on the steering wheel were the only indication of how difficult that process had been.

"So, you were tryin' to work the case, get a profile on the boogeyman. What d'ya have?"

Sam slipped open his notebook and glanced through it. They were by no means in safe territory, but it was more productive now, and there were still about two hours to Philadelphia if he kept up this speed.

"Well, the most obvious connection is our birthdays."

"Yeah. Same day."

"I thought, at first, that the thing we had in common was that our fathers were both hunters of some kind, but that wasn't it."

"No, but that pretty much clinches something else."

"Yeah." Sam looked up. "The psychic connection. Dean, do you think...do you think there is a link with her to Yellow Eyes too?"

"Well, you were close in age, but she didn't have the burning-house-dead-mom thing, obviously." Dean offered.

"Not all of the other psychics who've encountered Yellow Eyes fit that profile, though, remember? And none of them knew about their abilities until they were grown adults. Including me."

Dean couldn't believe he was going to say this but...

"That's just when they _noticed _them, Sam. What about the mom? She said she was having dreams. Like mother like daughter?"

He saw Sam shake his head out of the corner of his eye. "No, I don't think so. Remember when she talked about the fever? I bet that's what triggered it. There are all kinds of theories about psychic abilities, but the most credible ideas link it with the possibility that the brain, which we still don't know a lot about, 'wakes up' to parts normal people don't use. There have been a number of cases of people coming back from near death experiences and having visions, being 'sensitive.'"

"Whatever, Sam, it's not coincidental."

"What isn't?"

"You and...and Amber. The psychic connection. However you got it, you both are way up on the 'Scanners' list of suspects."

Sam sighed. "Maybe. So, the boogeyman targets children with psychic ability. That doesn't make it completely easy to track, since a kid might not have been showing any signs of it when they disappeared."

"But we have a date and a place."

"Yeah. Dad said he tracked it to that time and town. So, Osseo, Wisconsin on May 2nd. Birthday. Children with some kind of psychic profile. Do you...do you think this...creature...is actually working with Yellow Eyes somehow?"

Dean swallowed. It hardly mattered when there was a timetable and an eager Sam and a known monster he was running right towards.

"Listen to me, Sam. We don't move on this until we find out for sure how to kill it. You hear me? I don't know what Dad was thinking, but I know what _you _are thinking. There isn't an assload of lore on this thing for nothing, okay? It's made sure it's damn good at what it does, and what it does is _not_ leave people behind."

"Yeah."

Sam didn't look happy. Didn't seem grateful that he was making progress, and it's not like Dean was going to blame him for it, but God, he could just _stop_ this anytime he wanted. If it hurt, why didn't he just stop?

But he knew the answer before the question was even formed all the way in his mind. For a kid who made it his job to test their father from the age of 10 onward, Sam was a lot like Dad. Too much like Dad: the meticulous research, the unhealthy obsession, the dedication to self-destruction, the inability to let the past stay in the past. Damn this Yellow Eyed demon thing, already. Wouldn't it be enough to just find _that _fucker, end him, and then clear the slate? It wouldn't bring Dad back, but it would at least mean his death hadn't been for nothing. What the fuck was Sam proving? That he could top Dad in the badass department? That he could survive longer?

Even though Dean carried Sam out of burning house, even though their father was the most intimidating hunter on the planet, even though Sam was three times smarter than the average human being, It was scary to think that not a single one of them was technically a "survivor." Sam escaped the boogeyman once, but the little brother he had been before he was ten died that day too, and there had been nothing to bury.

Their father's obsessions had lead him to hell. Where were the rest of them going?

(to be continued...)

(Author end note: That porch sitter dude in Greensburg? ACTUAL person. I wrote every detail about the guy who sits on the porch of a corner house a block up and over from me. He needed a place in a SPN story like whoa.)


	11. Ch 11: Tea for Two

**Summary: Dad says that Sammy will come back eventually, but Dean's got good reason to believe something else is going on. Fourteen years later, the brothers find out that Yellow Eyes is only really concerned about one thing...and Sam's already met it.**

Hi guys! Sorry for the hiatus. Contrary to my high school students' belief, I actually do have more homework than they do, and school is now in full swing.

Much thanks to **Agelade**, a professional, who reads this stuff and gives me great feedback. Even teachers need teachers! Thanks to her, the stuff I wrote three months ago looked like crap to me, hence the time I needed to add/fix it.

You want awesome SPN fic? Go read her "Lustra" season 9 AU if you haven't yet. (I happen to know she's working on episode 5.)

Thanks for reading and reviewing! THANK YOU DEAR SWEET LORD!

-Caladrius

* * *

**Chapter 11: "Tea for Two"**

**May 6, 1993**

**Dean 14**

**Sam 10**

If Dean thought about it too much, he started to lose it. It was that simple. Four days later and Sam still hadn't spoken a word, still hadn't moved to do any damn thing on his own. Including the bathroom.

God. His brother was completely potty trained by eighteen months, all right? It was a necessity back then, but kids don't always internalize necessity at eighteen months (some couldn't even _walk_ by eighteen months). Sam did, though. He was like a _genius_ at the toilet, actually, didn't need the Cheerios or anything. But eight hours after he went dark, Dean found out what it was like to clean up after your ten-year-old brother like an infant. And then it had to be all scheduled on the dot and Sam had to be walked to the bathroom and Dean had to take him into the stall,_ and yeah, you fucking pervert over there at the urinal in the rest area, I'm fucking _watching_ you._

And Sam couldn't follow a verbal command for anything, but he seemed to at least be able to perform some actions on instinct. At least Dean didn't have to _hold_ anything for him, Jesus, and he could sit there and do a number two on his own, _thank God_.

At a table he'd hold a spoon or a fork, but he couldn't go through the motions of even feeding himself. So, yes, here we go again. Flashbacks to a burbling kid haphazardly booster-seated in a cheap dinette chair with Dean's backpack and a length of rope to keep him up a little, keep him from pitching over, while Dean made faces at Sam spitting up half a mouthful onto his shirt. Wasn't like they could rent a high chair; the motels Dad picked were cheap and not exactly family-friendly, and Dean was barely out of booster seat himself. But Dean had been resourceful and careful even at going-on-six. He _was_ careful because Dad wouldn't have accepted less. He was _so_ careful. And isn't that why they were in this situation to begin with?

_Fuck, Sam. Sammy_.

What the hell was going on in there and why the hell weren't you coming out and fuck.

_Fuck fuck fuck. Don't think. Shovel the damn mac and cheese. Get the kid fed because he's not gonna do it himself today. Maybe tomorrow, but not today._

Dean's hand on Sam's was steady. He was trying to teach his brother's arm how to eat again, get this motion to work. He thought maybe he was making some progress after four days, actually. Sam had taken two bites on his own but then just stopped, like a wind-up toy that had all wound down.

It wasn't working. Dean squeezed his eyes closed.

At least taking care of Sam's physical needs could keep Dean occupied. It kept him moving and thinking all over again about how to dress and bathe this totally unresponsive person-try to find out what Sam might be able to do on a kind of automatic pilot. It kept Dean focused on how to solve an immediate problem.

But then it was night and it was dark, and Dad was gone and it was just him and Sam. And Sam wasn't completely lost in a textbook or writing in a notebook, and there was a whole _sound_ that had come with those things, somehow, and it wasn't _there. _

And then Dean had to look at his kid brother. Had to remember everything and think about Sam crying and his hand on that ladybug thing saying "I killed Amber." And three motel rooms in four days Dean had to look at the goddamn closet and wonder. They were 1267 miles from Sam crying inconsolably, but he might have been just standing there in that room facing the closet in Osseo wondering how and where and why the boogeyman was and how Dean had fucked up, and _if_ he had fucked up, and was it really over?

Because Dad had said it was over that night in that first motel after Sam checked out, and Dean even thought he believed Dad when he said it, because Dean had gone out for five minutes to get soda and crackers from the vending machine and ice, and when he came back Dad was holding Sam in his lap. Just holding him, brushing the hair from his cheek. And he was saying, _"It's over Sam. No sense in staying away. Come on back . It's over, I promise. It's over. I'm sorry. Come on back, son._" His father's voice was soft, but a different quality of soft. Not a threat, not a command-because those were also soft-but genuinely gentle.

And Dean wanted to be sick because it was too much like Sam was gone forever. Dad's hands, his gentle voice...Dean hadn't even known it existed like that. Not for him, anyway. For mom, sometimes-though Dad didn't even talk about her, ever-and now for Sam.

That night, John hit the bottle harder than usual and three days later still hadn't crawled out of it.

So, yeah, maybe _it_ was over, but Sam was still _gone_ and Dad was nursing a drink or killing something somewhere else. And did it feel like Dad was running away? That the Impala was moving in a straight line to put as much distance between them and that place as possible? Or was it, like Dad said, just that they had to keep moving, keep doing what they do and Sam would come back in time.

Dinner was over. Bath time was over. Sam smelled like motel soap and he was still on the dinette chair like he was part of it. Dean's hand was halfway through his own hair as he stood in front of Sam and stared down at him.

"Sam, I know you're probably just fucking lost in that goddamn huge head of yours. See this? This is what happens when you take school seriously."

Hazel eyes gazed flat on someplace beyond Dean's kneecaps. On a whim, in desperation, Dean found Sam's bag at the bottom of the stuff they had carted in. There were a few used paperbacks in it, a couple of comic books. They were thumbed through a million times because books were heavy and Winchesters needed a crapload of space to store weapons, so Sammy always made due with what few books he could keep and reread them until their spines broke.

Dean picked one Sam had read to death, apparently: _David Copperfield. _Cool. A story about a magician. But when he flipped to the first page and started to read, his eyes glazed over.

"Jesus, Sam, _this_ is what you've been reading? What the hell. It's barely English." He took a knee in front of his brother and waved the book in front of him. "Hey, you in there? You want me to read this to you? Seriously, I should be getting at least a fucking 'hello' right now for even suggesting it."

Sam stared away.

"Fine. Then guess what. No _David Copperfield._ You like Batman better anyway. Feel free to stop me anytime with a smartass comment." He reached down and took Sam's hand.

And there it was. Connection. Because even if Sam couldn't feed himself, he would hold on. No matter what was happening, he'd hold onto Dean's hand, and wasn't that just the fucking kicker of the year? It was like Dean's fucking _reward_ for taking point, for somehow screwing with the boogeyman, for getting some little girl killed: Sam was holding his hand again.

_Fuck_.

There was no god in heaven, just some twisted creature that liked irony. And not even the nice kind. No fairy godmother for the Winchesters. No awesome, benevolent deity to take some kind of pity on him and his damn little brother whose biggest problem was just...loving the whole damn world. Nothing but all this hollowness and the false feeling of being wanted because a kid held his goddamn hand.

When Dean tugged, Sam stood up. When Dean walked, Sam followed. When Dean put him into the bed, Sam lay there like a board and gazed at the ceiling. And Dean felt actual relief getting into that bed, on the side closest to the closet because, what the hell. No chances. He slid his gun under the pillow, flopped onto his back, and then opened up the comic book. His arms raised it over his head and he kinda leaned it towards his brother so that at least he was staring at a page and not a ceiling.

"There's some suspenseful shit in this one, Sam. If it gets too scary, scream like a little girl."

_Tell me to get out of the bed. That you can handle it. _

"I'm serious. It can get intense. The Joker, y'know. Probably a lot more intense than _David Snoringfield . _You sure you can handle it?"

_Come on. Push me out. I dare you. Tell me you're sick of me babying you. Tell me again how you're four years already and can sleep in your own damn bed._

Dean read the comic cover to cover. He made sound effects. He cackled like the Joker. He read all of Batman's dialogue in a quiet, serious voice that yeah, sounded like Dad's. And at the end, at the "to be continued," Dean blew air out of his mouth, wished Dad had left some whiskey in the room, and switched off the light.

Dean turned towards his brother.

"'Night, Sam."

Sam's eyes silently reflected light from the crease in a curtain. When Dean put his hand up and closed them, he shivered to the depths of his being.

* * *

"_Oh, Mr. Winchester, you've been a naughty naughty boy."_

"'_Naughty' is my middle name, Mrs. Watson. What're you gonna do about that? Make me write the problem on the board again?"_

_Dean loved that line of cleavage beneath the tight white Oxford shirt When she leaned over his desk, he could almost alllmost see the top of the mountain in that tiny lacy black bra. _

_Damn, 8th grade math was so sexy. _

_Mrs. Watson had this little shocked mouth painted in red lipstick. Her blond hair was kinda all falling out of this bun on her head, and this skirt? Well. How short was this skirt? He reached a hand out and touched her knee._

_Pretty damn short. Hallelujah._

"_You're a hoodlum and a delinquent."_

_Like music._

"_Yes, ma'am."_

"_And I'll be keeping you after school for a personal detention."_

_Dean took a deep breath and grinned all the way to his toes._

"_Don't go easy on me, Mrs. Watson. D'you think maybe I could have some corporal punishment with that ruler too?"_

"_No."_

"_What? Hey, _my _dream..."_

"_No..."_

_Mrs. Watson was gone. Sam stared down at him blankly in her place_

_What the fuck? _

"_Sam? Did you just say-"_

"_No."_

Dean woke with a start. He panted and all the heat and pressure in his 14-year-old wheelhouse quickly evaporated as he looked over at his brother's open eyes.

"Sam?"

He grabbed his shoulder and shook him. Dean swallowed his heart for seconds, minutes, hours. The silence in the room was complete.

"Fuck, Sammy. Jesus. What the-"

Was that just all a dream? It could have been because Sam's voice had been gone for days. _He missed that voice!_

Sam's lips moved. "No. I hate it. You're too cold. It's cold."

_What the hell? What the hell! _ _That_ wasn't something he dreamed.

"Sammy? Sam!" Dean shook his brother. He repeated his name over and over. "What the fuck are you _saying?_"

But Sam said nothing. Dean rooted around in that blank stare, climbed through it desperately, like trying to uncover a body he knew had been buried alive-time was precious, breath was ebbing away...

...But there was a cement bottom, and it entombed its secrets, and Sam was still gone.

His words, however, lingered to chill the air.

"_You're too cold."_

* * *

Dawn broke, and with it, the silence: The Impala's engine stopped in front of the room and Dean looked up, red-eyed from his vigil of a (sleeping?) Sam as John Winchester pushed the door open far too heavily.

"Dad!"

Dean jumped out of bed. Even without the quiet order, he was grabbing the Marine med kit and throwing it open while John tilted straight toward the bathroom. The scent of blood and sweat and whiskey was almost overpowering.

"What happened?" He grabbed a suture needle and thread and his lighter. Did there look like a lot of blood? Yes, but he'd seen worse and Dad was still a fucking tank even if he was drunk enough to put three guys under a table.

"Vampires. Thought it was one, two at max, but they did a hell of a job covering their tracks."

"How many?" Dean asked academically.

"Five."

_Five? Jesus, Dad. Don't be too awesome or anything._

John sat on the covered toilet and bled obscenely from his shoulder into a mostly-pristine white towel-three deep, straight lines. No punctures. Thank God. Dad was the best hunter in the world, seriously. Dean thread the needle and crudely disinfected it with the flame of his lighter wishing he could have been there-wishing he could have helped.

"Did you get them all, then?"

"Think so. I'll make one more pass to be sure."

Dean nodded and then concentrated the fuck out of his suturing job. Dad was bleeding non-stop, and he was pale and he hadn't bothered shaving in five days, at least. When Dean pulled the thread through skin, John flipped out his wallet and placed a $20 on the sink with his uninjured arm.

"Take Sam across the street later and get what you want for 482 miles. Get me my usual."

"Yessir."

And then the bathroom was a blank canvas of silence that Dean wanted to carve into with his bowie knife-It was too flat and white and calm and empty...like his little brother. He had to bring _it _up even though Dad didn't like to repeat things he had already engraved in stone.

Dad was super touchy right now; killing an odd number of vamps beyond one wasn't a good thing because they tended to pair up pretty hard, and an odd number could mean stragglers. If something hadn't gone the way his father expected, then _you better walk on a fucking eggshell and stow the _other _thing for...later. _

And then Dad read his mind and said, "How's Sam?" and instead of feeling relieved, his oldest son tensed.

"What is it?"

Dean didn't tug too hard on the thread.

"Son?"

"Sam's the same, sir. But. He said something."

It was like a bucket overturned onto his father's head. Meaning, he sat up straight.

"What did he say?"

Dean told him. He told him every hollow word, as well as the fact that Sam hadn't moved in the three hours since.

John was silent as Dean finished up, tied off, and cut the thread with his knifepoint. He was silent as Dean cleaned up the blood and wrapped the wounds. It was only when Dean stood back that his father said:

"And?"

"Sir?"

"What else?"

Dean didn't make eye contact because eye contact was something for truths, and usually Dad was the keeper of them. But Dad's gaze was on on him and he couldn't move-there were still shards of broken glass all over the floor of this conversation, and Dean had to somehow get back to Sam in the other room.

So he said the one thing that was safe and true and couldn't be denied by his father or anyone or anything under heaven or in hell:

"I'm worried about Sam."

His father's hand lifted into the air and Dean braced himself-but it merely dropped onto his shoulder. It wasn't light and Dean flinched . He held his breath, but his father said nothing about _that_ and he wondered how long until the other shoe dropped and Sam's gentle Dad of the first night turned into the Dad Dean knew when he was like this.

But his father merely said, "Makes two of us," and he exited the bathroom, clearing a path of tentative safety back to the bed for his eldest to follow.

John leaned over Sam with a penlight, checked his pupils. Sam lay there and didn't complain. Dean watched numbly nearby as the man incensed his brother's catatonic body with whiskey breath.

"Sam? Sammy?" Those shoulders were small under Dad's hands. The shake was probably rougher than he meant. Normally, they earned their bruises if they didn't respond immediately, but Sam couldn't defend himself and maybe Dad would _accidentally_ forget that...

_Dammit dammit. Get his attention. Just do it. _Say _it!_

"Sir, you said...nothing could still...be after Sam."

There it was. The plunge into the shallow end filled with double-edged razor blades. He held his breath. But their father's hands came away from Sam and it was a relief because John was a fucking badass, greatest hunter ever, but he was drunk and not having a good night and Sam wasn't saying "yes, sir" and so...

"It's moved on. It got what it wanted." There was an exhausted sigh in his father's voice and Dean got out of the way when Dad wanted to be freed from Sam's circle of silence.

"What Sam said sounded like...a conversation," Dean nudged.

"Trauma. People say things. Might be in a dream state." He picked up the ice container and tossed it to Dean. "You're relieved for a few hours. Get ice, son."

And that was it.

"Yessir."

* * *

A few hours was more like fifteen minutes.

John was snoring deeply when Dean bent to tie Sam's shoes a couple hours later. Sam's nondescript shirt. Sam's nondescript pants. Brown hair a little mussed, but Dean swiped his fingers through it once and it was okay. It was passable for public. There was nothing weird about two brothers buying road food in a convenience store. Sammy looked too old to be hand-held, yeah, but it wasn't _strange _probably_._

Dean's concern was warranted. Not quite two years ago, there had been an "incident" with the law and child services and thank god Sam had been too smart for his own good then. When Dean and John finally got him back, he was sitting in a PD office room with a child psychologist drinking a chocolate milkshake like he had planned his own fucking vacation. After that, John and Dean were a lot more careful about public appearances. Of course, part of the problem was that none of them knew, exactly, what was accepted as "normal" when they were three guys on the road who actively hunted monsters for a living.

On top of Dean's hyper awareness that somebody somewhere was going to be watching him was the problem that the $20 Dad gave him wasn't exactly enough for "the usuals," which meant Dean was going to padding his coat. That particular operation was a cakewalk when Sammy was on point, distracting the clerk with over-curious questions about prices for things, and how many of those came in a pack and he'd like two of those, please. Old lady clerks, young lady clerks, crotchety older clerks-they were all easy prey for Sam. Maybe it was the innocent-kid thing, or maybe he was just that charismatic. Whatever it was, his brother was a fast hand, but a sweeter talker.

Dean frowned at the $20 . He was down a man.

Shoving the money into his pocket, he tugged at Sam's hand and his brother stood up from the bed like a toy soldier coming to attention. It fucking hurt.

Dean looked over at their father, hoping he was sleeping himself sober, but completely aware that Dad's "usual" involved a bottle of Old Grand-dad. With Sam turned off and Dad keyed up, it was up to Dean to keep bailing.

He could do it. He would do it all day and all night.

The convenience store was only a couple blocks away. Twice Dean looked down at Sam, wondering how the fuck he could walk when he didn't seem to be watching anything. And then, wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, they happened to pass right in front of a small local comic book store.

The window front of a comic store was better than a fucking Christmas-lit mall-just wall to wall heroes in technicolor flying, leaping, flexing, smiting, grimacing, smiling and punching their way to justice.

"Holy shit."

Dean stopped and stared. He salivated. He put a hand on the window.

"Jesus, Sammy, look at it. Fucking beautiful. How many can I hide under your shirt? You need some new material, man. Look," he pointed, "Batman _and_ Batman crossover, huh? Yeah? Wanna get some of tha-"

Dean's voice shut down mid stream as he caught a glimpse of Sam's face reflected in the glass. Trick of the light? Or...

"The fuck-"

He breathed.

Sam's eyes were shiny.

"_I thought…I thought I saw eyes. An eye. It was…shiny, like hematite." _

Dean grabbed Sam's shoulders and turned him to face him.

* * *

"Dad." Dean said it once. He said it loud and he didn't touch the man, and John Winchester was awake and sitting up from a full snore. Thank God. Thank God because _fuck_. He was shaking and yeah, eggshells and glass shards and _whatever the fuck _because he could live without his feet but not without Sam.

"Dean."

"Dad. Is it...is it possible. Just, please, sir...is it possible that the boogeyman or something is still hanging around?" He was not going to completely lose his shit in front of Dad. He was going to be calm. Tell him. "Is there any way to know for sure? Some hoo doo or something?"

John Winchester was slowly getting off the bed, and maybe he wasn't buying Dean's completely calm, rational act, and he had already addressed this twice and so there was probably a consequence here. _Talk faster._

"Just now, Sam's eyes..."

John stopped.

"What about them?"

"Gunmetal shiny. Like hematite shiny."

Dad looked over at Sam standing completely still. Of course his eyes weren't doing the thing _now_ because that would have been too simple.

"Sir, I swear."

John took a deep breath. "Dean, you need to pull yourself together, son."

"_Dad_." Dean raised his voice. He was throwing himself at a bear, but he was 14 and he couldn't drive legally and he didn't have Dad's contacts or know all the stuff Dad knew and Sam was gone and Dean could not _do_ this on his own. Not yet. He clenched his fists.

"I'm askin', is it possible? Do you know everything about it? Because I fucking saw it. I looked right into Sammy's eyes and I saw _it_. I don't have an imagination that fucked up that I see monsters in my brother when I'm walking down a fucking street."

John's face went pale. It made Dean sick, but he felt his whole life had maybe lead to this point.

"You tell me it's completely not possible, I'll believe you, but if there is a _chance..._"

Silence. His father looked away. Dean expected a backhand, had been ready for it for the F-bombs alone. This reaction was somehow worse.

"If there _is _a chance," he went on, quieter. "Dad, if there's a chance, we gotta know. Please."

John walked around Dean and squatted in front of Sam. Maybe he was looking for what Dean saw. Maybe he could see something Dean didn't. Maybe he could see Mom there, in Sam's features. His father took a deep breath and brushed a big calloused thumb against Sam's cheek.

"Dad, can we get information? Can we do something?" Dean swallowed.

John wrapped his arms around Sam and gingerly picked him up. His brother immediately rested his head on Dad's shoulder like it was the most natural fucking thing in the world to do.

"I've got a few things I can check. Grab the bags."

Dean felt his heart start. He wasn't sure when it had stopped.

"What about the vamp nest? You were gonna do one last sweep."

"In the opposite direction from a library I need. When Sam is back on his feet again, we'll come back."

_Screw you, Batman. Dad is a fucking hero. He's the only hero we need._

Dean nodded and turned to get their things. For the first time in days he felt some shred of hope.

"Son?"

"Yes, sir?" He turned around.

John nodded quietly at him over Sam's shoulder. "You may have made the right call."

Dean couldn't say "thank you" because he was holding back a flood of bitch tears. He nodded. It was hot, this feeling in his stomach. It was a chaotic mix of emotions and it fueled him as he hastily packed their things.

When the Impala was roaring down the highway and the music was turned up and Dad was watching the road, Dean put his arm around Sam's neck and leaned down to whisper in his ear.

"Sammy, Dad's gonna get you out, okay? You just hang on in there and wait for us." He swallowed and continued grimly. "And if by chance there is some fucking boogeyman tuning in, listen up, because you're gonna lose, you son of a bitch. Do you hear me? I don't fucking care how sneaky you think you are-you're gonna fucking _lose _to the Winchesters, I swear to God."

* * *

**April 7, 2007**

**Dean 28**

**Sam 23**

It turned out that the trip to Philadelphia and Eastern State Penitentiary created an unforeseen little side job. Sam pointed out the tail on the turnpike and Dean swore under his breath.

A slight detour into Harrisburg drew a rust-colored Ford Escort that had been following them for about two and a half hours from Greensburg.

Four hours later, Dean smirked and shook his canteen of holy water. Fucking demon. Fucking demon stalker. Admittedly, _that_ was a little unexpected, but Dean wasn't complaining. Eastern State was important by his brother's estimation, but it was likely not connected to the bigger picture. The hot little number who followed them into the empty warehouse was a lot more promising to the whole Yellow Eyes thing by Dean's standards, and all it took was a devil trap on the ceiling.

They never looked up. Seriously. It was a condition of being a demon, apparently. Dean might have spared some moment of sheepishness for not taking Sam's paranoia seriously just before they met with Amber's mom, but it was frankly overshadowed by a sick kind of glee.

Time for some answers.

"Man, you are one dumb bitch. How'd you end up pulling the short stick? Last in your class at demon school? Maybe a dropout?"

"Fuck you."

"An _Escort_? Seriously? Not exactly 'hell on wheels.'"

"Says the guy who drives a _black Impala_ that can be tailed four miles away."

She tilted her head and blond curls fell forward. Red-painted lips smiled up at him dripping with seduction, despite the fact that her pretty ass was tied to a wooden chair and she was still smoking from her first dose of holy water.

Damn, yeah. He just loved breaking these low-level smart-ass bastards.

Dean grinned. "You think we're _hiding_ from you black-eyed bitches?" Dean raised his arms and turned, encompassing the wide open space. "Welcome to our Q and A session. Sammy, tell the lady what's she's won."

But Sam was all business.

"Why are you following us?" he demanded and, yes, that Game Face was definitely improving. He had the height, he had the means, and he had the motive. No "good cop/bad cop" for these things anymore. Nope. Just All Bad Cop all the time.

"There's no law against keeping tabs on a guy, is there? Just making sure that an investment can live to get his chance at the Big Time, that's all. You've got me pegged all wrong, Sam."

The demon bitch kicked off her black heel and tried to sweet talk his brother, tried to snake a foot up his leg.

Sam stepped back and narrowed his eyes. "So, you _do _work for him. For Yellow Eyes."

She pouted up at him. "You know, if you spend all your time asking questions you already know the answer to, we'll get bored."

"Oh, man, we can't let that happen, can we Sammy?" Dean smiled broadly and hit his brother in the chest with the back of the canteen. "I mean, we need to show the _lady _a good time." He shook the bottle at her and the demon screamed shortly. "So, are we having fun yet?"

When he turned to his little brother the glee evaporated.

Sam's jaw was set. His expression was like the first hour after Jess died: Cold, empty, ready to take something apart with clinical efficiency, but so _lost_.

Dean turned to their captive. When he tilted his head down to look at her, all of the levity of the situation was gone.

"What's this 'big time' you're talkin' about? What is Yellow Eye's plan? Let's hear all about that. I've got buckets and buckets of this stuff and it just sits around in my car."

"It doesn't matter. We can have a wet T-shirt contest if you want, but I can't spoil the big finale. And it's above my pay grade anyway. My job is to keep precious Sammy baby all alive and well until the final act because he's 'daddy's favorite.'" She tipped her head. "We're on the same side, 'big brother.' Surprised?"

Dean streaked her with holy water and let her scream that out. Angry welts rose to mar that pretty face she had stolen from some other poor girl.

"Lady, you may be a lot of things, but you're not on _my _side. The only one on my side is me, and I'm territorial. And I can manage without a demon's help, thank you very much."

Sam shifted his weight on his feet and a muscle moved in his jaw.

"Unnnng." She lifted her face to Dean and then to Sam, clearly in pain. "Oh really? You don't know how many 'wanted' lists he's on now. It's hard work Bringing Up Baby, and you're just letting him out of the playpen whenever he makes a cute face. Admit it."

Dean's jaw twitched. "He is an adorable little tadpole, isn't he?"

"Adorable, tasty, whatever works for you. Keep digging up the past and he'll find what he's looking for. You sure you want _that_, 'big brother?"

Sam's expression broke. He met Dean's eyes as if he'd just been _caught _at something, _dammit_, and then his fists clenched. "I've heard enough." he said, pulling a sheet of paper from his back pocket. The exorcism ritual.

"Really? _Really_? You want to send me off now? I _know _what's after Sam. _You're _clueless, 'Big Brother.' Hello, best interests?" She tossed off the bravado and fairly pleaded her case directly at Dean who was squeezing the holy water in indecision.

"Wait, Sam."

Sam gestured to her. "Don't listen to her, Dean. She's clearly trying to manipulate _you_. Anything from this point is just a diversion, a bargain-she's not gonna tell us anything about Yellow Eyes, and _that's_ the only reason she's still here." Sam opened the paper and began to read. "_Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus-"_

"I said, _wait, _Sam." Dean's voice was harsh in his own ears. It was out of character for his brother to be so willing to lose this chip, and _that_ was what was worrying about this.

Amber's mom had just exposed the possible psychic link with the boogeyman, and Yellow Eyes was connected with psychic kids. If Sam didn't want Dean to see how two and two equaled four, then there was going to be a problem.

He ignored the look on Sam's face and got back to it.

"Now, what the hell are you talkin' about? And better make it quick because we're on a short fuse and a tight schedule of our own."

"You mean like tracking down the 'boogeyman?' Like _that_ tight schedule?"

Sam closed the paper, clenched his jaw, and took a step closer. "What do you know about that?"

Velvet red victory smile. Man, Dean wanted to punch this bitch.

"On the menu next to 'filet mignon' is a picture of your cute little face, Sam. That's what I know. You're like fine French cuisine to that freaky monster."

"Why?"

"Why? You know why. You practically project 'come eat me! I've been raised on nothing but fine grain and beer and my muscles have been massaged since birth' to anything supernatural with a taste for the human psyche. Because it's true-you've been fed the good stuff, Sam."

"Okay, whoa. What the hell are you talkin' about?" Dean felt something ominous on the horizon, and like the sun, he didn't want to look this full in the face either.

"Oh, _Sam_'ll find out about _that_ soon enough, I promise. Do you think you deserve a front-row seat, Dean-O? Please. Only special babies get the special treatment. You're nothing but Plan A to keep little brother alive until his big debut, and you're failing."

There was no way. _No way_ he was failing. Failing meant Sammy died or worse. Failing meant watching his brother disappear into a freaky, shiny-eyed void. Failing meant that he couldn't _stop_ whatever had started-that _thing _Dad had worried about. Failing meant having to go down _that _road...

"_When the time comes, you'll know it's too late, and then the only way to save him is to kill him. To kill Sammy. Remember that, son."_

Her jaw cracking felt kind of good. Solid. Punchable and vulnerable. And he was going to _kill_ this cow...

"Dean."

Dean ignored Sam. He picked up the first bucket and overturned the entire thing over her head. The whole fucking thing.

"_Dean!_"

The demon's hoarse screams reached the rafters. They reverberated off the walls. Dean was calm as he waited, patiently. Yeah, he was patient. He could do this all fucking day. Maybe he _was_ done talking. Maybe now it was just time for the hurting.

Yeah. He could live with that.

"So, Yellow Eyes isn't working with the boogeyman thing at all." It was a statement, and Sam was speaking fast because he probably sensed talky-time was over.

She was having a hard time responding. Her cheeks were two sizes too big now, and all puffy and red and man it probably hurt just to take a breath. Sucked to be her.

"Not...not working together, you idiot. But boy, I wish they were because you're so eager to jump into that thing's lap. Aren't you...aren't you listening to what I'm saying? Before you can be a big fish you have to be a really tasty little fish. And tasty little fish like you are so hard to keep alive in the big bad ocean of everything you blind humans don't know. And your fucking father brought you _right _to him. To the boogeyman, you'd be worth bumping to the top of the list. All of you tasty little fish. The boogeyman _eats_ clever little proteges like you, sweet, delicious Sam. Sad face for my boss. "

Sam's color turned to sidewalk cement.

"Your brother gets a gold star for saving you once, but he won't get the medal until after your birthday. Just gotta make it to one more, Sam. Just one more."

_Just one more..._

_Fuck, Sammy._

Sam picked up the thread. "How...how do I kill it?"

"What?"

She wasn't very pretty anymore, and her stupid "what" face was going to require another bucket of holy water, Dean just knew it.

"The...the boogeyman," Sam was insistent. "How do I kill it?"

The demon shook her head like he was crazy.

"How the fuck should I know? It's the _boogeyman_, retard. It's been preying on humanity for as long as humanity has been crawling. Primordial evil with mind powers. You let it get inside your head once, Sammy, that's all it took. You're like a _Dick and Jane_ primer to it now. Don't you remember having tea and crumpets with it for two weeks when you were 'out of bounds' to the rest of the world?"

Dean froze.

_Shit_. _Shit, I fucking knew it!_

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sam look at him.

They were both so totally compromised now. Sam's eyebrows were drawn together and the desperation for answers leaked through his voice.

"How do you know about that? _What _do you know about it?"

"What does it matter? Ancient history, but you better let it go if you want to live in the here and now. Stay the fuck out of it. Leave it alone."

"I thought...I thought it only went after psychic _children_," Sam pushed.

"I don't have a Ph.D in boogeyman psychology. I'm not narrating a monster documentary, here. All I know is what I was told. That it _wants_ you, Sam, and that if you go looking for it, it might find you. _Stay out of Osseo_, Sam Winchester. It's the difference between being at the top of the food chain or at the bottom."

She had nothing but ominous warnings. In ten more minutes it was clear she was the gruntiest grunt at the bottom of the totem pole with nothing useful to give except, obviously, a boogeyman warning from a fucking Yellow Eyed demon.

Dean wasn't satisfied until he had overturned every bucket. Sam read the exorcism as fast as he could, but there was no getting around the pain. For any of them. And when her stupid demon ass liquefied into noxious smoke and was banished back to hell to give a nice, tidy little report, Dean threw the bucket at a nearby wall.

"Dean." Sam's hand was on his shoulder. "It's over."

Dean laughed. God, man, _that_ was funny.

"Oh, it ain't over, Sammy. It's just begun."

He didn't have to preach to the choir; he could see his brother was pretty unnerved.

"We need to get some...some talismans or something to shake these demons off our trail." Sam's face was a mess of emotion, but there was a conviction rising behind it.

_And why is that, Sammy? Because you're going to keep digging no matter what they say? No matter what _I _say?_

"I say let them all come. If every demon is dead, then that's _one_ problem down."

"Yeah, except for the fact that, without the Colt, we haven't had much success figuring out how to actually _kill_ a demon."

"Or a boogeyman, Sam. Or that."

Sam swallowed. He saw it distinctly. Maybe the bitch had been lying about everything, but time rewound in Dean's mind and he remembered a little brother in a bed in the dark staring at the ceiling saying,_ "No. I hate it. You're too cold. It's cold."_

_Fuck, Sammy._ Two weeks in his head with the boogeyman, if that was true, and then Sam came back, but he _had_ come back changed...

Dean felt cold. Sam hadn't remembered anything about those two weeks. Nothing. As far as he knew, he still didn't.

_As far as he knew._

"Sam, you were ten..._two weeks_, Sam."

"She didn't have to be telling the truth about _anything_."

Dean grabbed the front of his coat, "You said you didn't _remember_ anything."

"I didn't! _I don't."_ Sam retorted, pulling himself free. "Dean, I swear."

Earnest voice, yeah. Dean put a hand over his mouth, the other on his hip. He turned around because Sam shouldn't see him thinking about tying him down in the Impala and waiting this whole fucking thing out.

"_One more birthday..."_

Fuck. Fuck!

"Dean, this...this paranoia is just what they want. Let's get to Philadelphia, do some good," Sam pleaded.

_You're birthday is in less than one fucking month, Sammy._

"Ash has his feelers out for the demon signs, Dean. Bobby is looking too."

Dean wheeled back to him. "And _you're _still on the boogeyman trail, right?"

"We're getting nowhere staying _here_." His little brother looked over at the unconscious young lady in the chair. "Let's get her out of here and drop her off at a hospital."

"Yeah, nothing to say to that, I see." Dean stalked away to get the car and his mood was murderous.

(To be continued...)

* * *

p.s. These are cannon vampires, but technically, in cannon, they aren't introduced until near the end of season 1. Go with it, please, and trust me.


End file.
